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  • NCDMB and harvest of new oil and gas investments

    NCDMB and harvest of new oil and gas investments

    By MacArthur Edem

    The Nigerian oil and gas industry has been buzzing in the last few days over the announcement made by the Global Chief Executive Officer of Shell, Wael Sawam at last week’s visit to President Bola Tinubu, that the international oil company would invest $20bn in the Bonga South West deep water project. This is coming on the heels of the same company’s final investment decision (FID) on the $5bn Bonga North deep-water project in December 2024.

    Even more recent is Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company (SNEPCo) investment of $2bn HI Field Gas project, in partnership with Sunlink Energies and Resources Limited in October 2025. A similar recent investment is TotalEnergies $500m UBETA Gas project, that took FID in September 2024.

    The role of the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) in enabling this latest investment and many other projects cannot be over emphasised.

    By adapting the three new Presidential Directives, otherwise known as Executive Orders (EOs) on the oil and gas industry and developing new Nigerian content contracting guidelines, NCDMB played significant roles in the harvests of nearly $30bn new investments.

    The avalanche of new oil and gas investments in the last two years of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration signposts the return of confidence by the international community and favourable investment climate. Evidently, the roll out of three Executive Orders (EOs) by President Tinubu in March, which offered incentives and clarified application of local content laws unlocked new capital in the sector.

    Under the leadership of Felix Omatsola Ogbe, (NCDMB) has been the path of steady, strategic delivery — with laser focus on enabling projects and a blend of policy fidelity, practical interventions. Recently the Board has adopted an increasingly visible community-focused orientation that repositions local content as a national development engine rather than a purely industrial metric.

    In catalysing new projects, NCDMB ensures that Nigerian content opportunities are maximised in line with the provisions of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Industry Content Development (NOGICD) Act. While granting waivers where applicable, the Board ensures that competent local service companies execute key scopes of projects and existing capacities are utilised and jobs are created. The Board also guarantees that these major projects impact and grow the local economy significantly, while creating new legacy capacities in the sector.

    As NCDMB enters its 16th year, the Board under Ogbe’s leadership reflects the evolution of an institution that has significantly expanded Nigeria’s footprint in the oil and gas sector and is now deepening its commitment to shared prosperity in both industry and communities.

    A key indicator of progress is the rise in Nigerian content levels, which climbed to about 61% across monitored projects in 2025 — a figure reflecting broader domestic participation in goods, services and skilled labour. This result underscores multiple elements of Ogbe’s approach: targeted financing, systematic capacity building, and the innovative, inclusive deployment of presidential directives to reduce contracting cycles and prioritize indigenous capability.

    Financing and industrial scale-up remain foundational. Under Ogbe, NCDMB in December 2025 launched a $100 million Equity Investment Scheme — part of the broader Nigerian Content Intervention Fund — designed to provide growth capital to indigenous oil and gas service companies with demonstrable potential. Complementary initiatives, including partnerships around the Africa Energy Bank and other development finance institutions, are helping Nigerian firms secure the long-term capital required to compete for larger, more technically complex projects.

    Ogbe has also distinguished himself in translating presidential directives into impactful operational reforms. The Board’s recalibration of contracting cycle guidelines and compliance frameworks reflects an innovative and inclusive application of the 2023 Presidential Directives on Local Content. These adjustments align seamlessly with the Tinubu administration’s national economic strategies — particularly the 8-Point Agenda — by shortening procurement timelines, eliminating redundant layers, and encouraging genuine technology transfer and value retention within Nigeria. Ogbe’s leadership style avoids confrontation in favour of structured engagement and practical collaboration with industry operators.

    Yet one of the most consequential shifts in Ogbe’s era is the renewed commitment to communities. The Board’s Community Contractors Scheme, along with its “Back-to-the-Creek” and outreach programmes, has meaningfully expanded local participation. Through micro-contracts, grassroots procurement, and targeted empowerment initiatives, communities are being woven directly into the local content value chain. By 2025, dozens of community contractor disbursements had been recorded — a signal that the Board is intentionally ensuring that local content is not an abstract policy but a lived experience for host populations.

    This community-centred focus is not a departure from NCDMB’s industrial mission; it is a necessary and overdue complement to headline initiatives. Industrial growth is unsustainable without local supply chains, trained labour, and community ownership. By bridging boardrooms and communities, Ogbe is shaping a more resilient local content ecosystem.

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    Human capacity development has also expanded. Training programmes — covering vocational, technical, and industry-specific skills — have collectively delivered millions of training man-hours across thousands of beneficiaries since the Board’s inception, with new emphasis under Ogbe on workplace readiness. Models such as the 60-20-20 training structure ensure that learning outcomes directly translate into field competence. This investment strengthens indigenous firms, reduces expatriate dependence, and equips Nigerians to fill emerging roles associated with project final investment decisions.

    Beyond these, other important accomplishments include the institutional strengthening of the Nigerian Content Academy, the continued evolution of the Hackathon as a pipeline for digital innovation, and ongoing growth of the Nigerian Oil and Gas Opportunity Fair (NOGOF) as a reliable marketplace connecting indigenous suppliers to upcoming projects. These initiatives reinforce NCDMB’s role as an enabler of competitiveness, innovation, and sustainable participation.

    Notably, Ogbe’s leadership is characterized by quiet effectiveness. He is not one for theatrics or self-congratulation; instead, he allows the Board’s performance — Nigerian firms empowered, communities engaged, policies implemented, and investment unlocked — to speak on his behalf. This measured temperament is well suited for complex institutional work that requires clarity, stability, and trust.

    It is also important to acknowledge the hardworking management team and dedicated staff of NCDMB, whose professionalism and commitment have been central to supporting Ogbe’s agenda. Their collaborative effort ensures that strategic direction is translated into operational results across the Board’s departments, projects and partner engagements.

    As NCDMB enters into its 16th year, the story of Nigerian Content is one of evolution: from early policy foundations to robust industrial growth, and now to a more balanced and community-connected phase. Under Felix Omatsola Ogbe’s thoughtful stewardship — and with the unwavering support of his team — the Board continues to champion a vision where local content strengthens industries, empowers people, and contributes meaningfully to Nigeria’s broader economic transformation.

    •Prince Edem is a public affairs analyst.

  • How ideological vacuum fosters unchecked power

    How ideological vacuum fosters unchecked power

    • By Samuel Akpobome Orovwuje

    Hans J. Morgenthau warned in Politics Among Nations (1948) that politics is a struggle for power guided by interest. Power, he argued, does not restrain itself; it must be limited by ideas, institutions, and moral purpose. Decades later, Randall G. Holcombe, writing on politics as exchange in Political Capitalism: How Economic and Political Power Is Made and Maintained (2018), described a system where political loyalty is traded for access, protection, and advantage. When ideas lose value, exchange replaces conviction.

    Together, these insights help explain Nigeria’s present condition. Power is expanding not because it is defended by clear beliefs, but because the political marketplace has thinned out. Ideas no longer compete; interests do. And where ideas retreat, power advances.

    This helps make sense of the recent wave of governors defecting to the All Progressives Congress (APC). These moves are rarely explained in terms of policy disagreement or belief. They are framed instead around alignment and national interest. In practice, they reflect calculation in a system where federal power is concentrated and opposition looks uncertain. Party labels become temporary; access becomes permanent.

    Sadly, unchecked power thrives where opposition is weak. The APC’s growing dominance is less about persuasion than gravity. Control of federal power draws actors inward. In such a climate, survival replaces belief, and silence becomes strategy. The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has struggled to counter this pull. Internal disputes, leadership uncertainty, and a lack of clear direction have weakened its standing. Indecision sends a signal: that loyalty is optional and the future unclear. When a party cannot say firmly what it stands for or where it is going, it loses the authority to ask members to stay and fight.

    Smaller parties and coalition efforts were expected to widen choice, but many have repeated the same mistake. The African Democratic Congress (ADC), often cited in coalition talks, illustrates the limits of alliances without shared purpose. Meetings and announcements create excitement, but without an agreed programme, leadership structure, and discipline, such coalitions remain fragile. They gather ambition, not agreement. Politics then becomes exchange in Holcombe’s sense: temporary arrangements driven by advantage rather than belief. These arrangements rarely last long enough to challenge entrenched power.

    The implications for the 2027 general elections are serious and immediate. First, the field of choice is narrowing. As defections continue and opposition weakens, voters risk facing elections with fewer real alternatives. Elections may still be competitive in form, but thin in substance. When parties sound alike and stand for little, voting becomes a ritual rather than a decision.

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    Second, incumbency advantage will deepen. With power concentrated and opposition fragmented, the ruling party’s reach into institutions, narratives, and resources will expand. This does not require overt abuse; imbalance alone shapes outcomes. Where competition is weak, accountability fades.

    Third, voter confidence is at risk. Nigerians have shown resilience and commitment to the ballot, even under difficult conditions. But confidence depends on belief that choices matter. When mandates are transferred through defections and coalitions dissolve before taking shape, citizens begin to feel side-lined. Turnout and trust suffer when politics appears closed.

    Fourth, politics will tilt further toward personalities and regions rather than programmes. Without ideology, campaigns rely on identity, fear, and short-term promises. This may mobilize support temporarily, but it weakens national cohesion and policy debate. Elections become louder, not clearer.

    Finally, institutions will feel the pressure. A weak opposition and dominant executive environment discourage robust legislative oversight and independent action. Even well-meaning officeholders become cautious when the cost of dissent is isolation. None of this is inevitable. But time matters. Rebuilding ideas takes longer than building coalitions of convenience. If parties wait until election season to define themselves, the damage will already be done.

    For 2027 to strengthen Nigeria’s democracy rather than hollow it out, several shifts are necessary. Defection must carry political cost, not reward. Opposition parties must settle disputes early and speak with clarity. Coalitions must be built around programmes and shared commitments, not announcements. And citizens must demand positions, not just promises.

    Morgenthau reminds us that power seeks expansion. Holcombe reminds us that politics without ideas becomes exchange for advantage. Nigeria today reflects both warnings. Democracy survives not because power exists, but because it is challenged. It thrives when ideas compete and citizens choose between real alternatives. If the political marketplace remains empty, power will continue to grow unchecked—and elections will decide offices, not direction.

     In the final analysis, the question before Nigeria as 2027 approaches is simple: will ideas return to politics, or will access continue to replace belief? The answer will shape not just the next election, but the character of the republic itself.

    •Orovwuje is public affairs analyst.

  • APC, where are the women?

    APC, where are the women?

    • By Ronke Bello

    The All Progressives Congress (APC) is the ruling political party. It was founded as a result of strategic merger of several opposition parties on February 6, 2013. The party with its historic unseating of an incumbent president in 2015, retaining the presidency with the election of Asiwaju Bola Tinubu in 2023, and for the fact of enjoying good leadership under the steady and experienced hands of politicians, technocrats and academics of good reputes, most recently the well respected and erudite Professor Nentawe Goshwe Yilwatda, the current national chairman, without doubt is far becoming one of Africa’s most formidable parties.

    By design or default, the APC has been able to draw into its fold even states earlier held by opposition parties, a feat that has turned into an allegation from some quarters that the present government is deliberately turning our beloved nation into a one party system. This allegation seems not to steer any hornet nest as the response from the ruling APC fold has been dismissive. One may ask: apart from providing good governance and tangible developments, isn’t the major aim of any political party to win more followership? Or is the party apart from its core duties meant to headhunt and recruit members for the oppositions?

    While our great party has attempted to focus on governance, steer the ship of party steady and bring more members on board, the issue of gender balance sticks out like a sore thumb. Most recently, Nigerians and indeed the global community where astounded when the party again presented the all-male Committee on Strategy, Conflict Resolution and Mobilization to the leader of the party, President Bola Tinubu for inauguration. This is actually another blow where none of all the women in professional and grass root sectors of the APC could be found worthy for such committee.

    While respectfully acknowledging the decisions and supremacy of the party, the Terms of Reference of this particular committee speaks volume: “Strategy, Conflict Resolution and Mobilization”, so apart from the women of the party still short-changed in appointments, legislature duties, in states across the federation and the boring optics, the party believe that only men can strategize, resolve conflicts and mobilize? Very interesting!

    For the ruling party, the post mortem reports  by several local and foreign observers of the last 2023 elections especially a paper by The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (2023) should be an attention-grabbing  note as it assert that “while  men have slightly more registered voters (around 52.5%) compared to women (around 47.5%) in Nigeria, studies and observations suggest women often show higher turnout and engagement in the actual act of voting, participating more actively in elections than men, despite their underrepresentation in political office. “

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    In all professions and activities, while I do not believe that women need to crawl and beg for participation we shouldn’t be equally ignored. Talent, skill, capacity, brain has no gender. On record, APC women in the last election went far and above all boundaries to get a win for the party. If the party now decides that women can’t serve in a good ratio in governance or party affairs, then we should certainly and respectfully shouldn’t serve in any singing , clapping or whining of  waists in future campaigns if that is the role the party envisages ahead for us.

    APC as a great, bold, winning and enlightening party should by now be an enviable example of what an encompassing political party should be across Africa and the globe. In 2026 many nations across the world are led by women and even oppositions are led by women too.

    Opposition parties even in Nigeria have found tangible roles for women as strategists, publicists, legal advisers, grass root mobilisers et al. Ours respectfully feel very comfortable with one gender and this on a lighter note reminds me of the 2023 elections when the APC was running helter-skelter looking for a woman that needed to urgently run into the TV stations to go head to head with a tough and well respected northern woman – activist.

    While one must recognize and praise some women in leadership and in the party that are constantly pushing for women beginning from Senator Remi Tinubu, our most respected First Lady who has been a huge flag bearer; Nigerian women still need to constantly drum it up to her so she won’t give up until Nigeria inches close or achieves her National Gender Policy (NGP) (2006) 35% affirmative action for women in governance. For now, a lot still need to be done.

    We must give kudos to Mary Idele Alile, the party women leader and Hajiya Zainab Abubakar Ibrahim, the Deputy Women Leader who are equally pulling their weights with key initiatives centring on “the twinning formula” that aims to position women as deputy governors/chairpersons and advocating for reserved seats for Nigerian women in politics.

    Recently also, in a chance meeting with the amiable Minister of Women Affairs, Hajiya Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, our engagement reveals her undeniable passion and conviction on gender empowerment, inclusion, equality, women’s rights, protecting vulnerable groups, and advancing women’s leadership, as embedded in the Renewed Hope Agenda is not just infectious but one that resonates with global practices. She is a good ambassador!

    In the words of Hillary Clinton: “There cannot be true democracy unless women’s voices are heard. There cannot be true democracy unless women are given the opportunity to take responsibility for their own lives. There cannot be true democracy unless all citizens are able to participate fully in the lives of their country.”

    The former president of Argentina, Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, in her own words further declares that “Our society needs women to be more numerous in decision-making positions and in entrepreneurial areas” and according to Melinda Gates“, in the developing world, it’s about time that women are on the agenda.”

    As our great party marches forward with heads high towards the next general elections which we can’t take for granted and which should be won convincingly on the tracking and measurements of our policy formations and implementation especially as promised Nigerians, the party would fare better in a gender balancing act in which the oppositions on a keen preview are currently taking the lead. Our party, the All Progressive Party cannot attempt to keep clapping with one hand.

    •Bello, Ph.D, is an academic, public policy analyst, publicist and author.

  • 2026 as a defining year

    2026 as a defining year

    • By Ooreoluwa O. Agbede

    By the time Nigerians cast their votes in 2027, many of the most decisive political battles would already have been fought and settled. That defining battleground is 2026.

    Although election day is still over a year away, 2026 will be a legally intense and politically consequential phase of Nigeria’s electoral cycle. It is the year of party primaries, strategic realignments, the calling in of political debts from the 2023 elections, nominations, resignations, defections, exclusions, substitutions, and, most significantly, pre-election litigation. These processes will ultimately determine the range of candidates that Nigerians will be able to choose from in 2027, often narrowing those choices long before a single vote is cast. In Nigerian electoral practice, elections are not won only at polling units; they are very often won or lost in party secretariats and courtrooms by the decisions the parties present to the populace.

    Nigeria’s electoral jurisprudence has long settled this reality. The bulk of election disputes arise before election day, not after. The 1999 Constitution and the Electoral Act impose strict timelines that compel most nomination-related conflicts to be resolved well ahead of the polls. Consequently, 2026 is the year politicians move from quiet calculations to full execution, by regrouping, rebranding, negotiating power blocs, consolidating party structures, and positioning themselves to secure party tickets for the 2027 general elections. In practical terms, it is the true testing ground of Nigeria’s democratic process.

    For political parties, the year will function as an operational stress test. The law places the burden squarely on parties to conduct credible primaries, lawfully screen aspirants, and submit only candidates who genuinely emerged from valid processes. Failures at this stage will not merely cause internal embarrassment; they are likely to trigger litigation across the country. Poorly handled screening exercises, opaque primaries, unlawful substitutions, or disregard for statutory timelines almost inevitably end up before the courts, except where aggrieved aspirants opt for calculated political settlements outside the judicial arena.

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    As party primaries draw closer, internal tensions will intensify. Disputes are expected over which party organ has the authority to conduct primaries, whether control rests with national or state structures, who controls delegate lists, and the influence wielded by financiers, political godfathers, and recent defectors. Parallel primaries and competing results will not be unusual. While courts traditionally regard party primaries as internal affairs, the law draws a firm boundary: once statutory safeguards are breached, judicial intervention becomes unavoidable. Courts will not impose candidates on parties, but they will enforce compliance with the law and party rules.

    The screening of aspirants is likely to be the earliest flashpoint. Aspirants excluded on grounds of zoning, perceived electability, or internal political calculations are unlikely to accept their fate quietly. Many will defect to rival parties, while others will seek judicial redress. In some cases, rival aspirants will institute actions to block defectors viewed as political threats, and there will also be instances where persons or groups lacking the requisite standing attempt to draw courts into the internal affairs of parties. Where screening processes lack transparency or fairness, parties should expect mass defections, parallel primaries, and multiple suits filed across jurisdictions.

    As we progress this year, the submission of candidates’ names to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will open yet another wave of disputes. Once INEC publishes candidates’ particulars, scrutiny begins in earnest. Educational qualifications, discrepancies in names, allegations of forged certificates, age declarations, and citizenship status will dominate the legal landscape. Substitution of candidates, whether arising from withdrawal, disqualification, or political compromise, will also generate urgent litigation, particularly where statutory procedures or timelines are breached.

    The year will also witness a wave of resignations by political appointees seeking elective office. While the legal questions surrounding resignation appear straightforward, they are often deeply contentious in practice: when exactly must resignation occur, is it mandatory or merely directory, and what constitutes effective resignation? These issues will form the basis of eligibility challenges capable of derailing otherwise viable candidacies.

    The judicial approach in 2026 is expected to remain consistent. Courts will continue to discourage frivolous suits and internal party quarrels brought without legal foundation, but clear breaches of the constitution, the Electoral Act, or party guidelines will attract firm judicial sanctions. Outcomes will turn on evidence and strict compliance, not political sentiment or public sympathy.

    Pre-election matters must be filed within fourteen (14) days of the occurrence of the cause of action and concluded within one hundred and eighty (180) days, with appeals determined within sixty (60) days of commencement. These compressed timelines leave no room for procedural missteps and technical competence, speed, swift gathering of evidence and precision will determine success or failure, and losing track of time in 2026 may prove fatal to political ambition.

    By the time Nigerians vote in 2027, many outcomes will already have been shaped, if not conclusively determined, by the decisions, disputes, negotiations, and judgments of 2026. Party cohesion, candidate legitimacy, and electoral fortunes will all trace their roots back to this pre-election year. In Nigeria’s democracy, election day is not the first act. The real contest begins in the year before.

  • Sokoto: A journey in continuity

    Sokoto: A journey in continuity

    • By Mahmoud Bala

    One of the greatest tragedies of government transition in Nigeria is the abandonment of projects started by predecessors. This costly behaviour by incumbents across Nigeria has left evidence of wastage across every state. Some projects, started as far back as 1999, continue to deteriorate at the expense of the people they were meant to serve.

    It is therefore refreshing to see that some governors are beginning to think differently, and one of them is Governor Ahmed Aliyu of Sokoto State. Unlike his predecessor, Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, who clearly abandoned incomplete projects left behind by former governor and now Senator Aliyu Magatakarda Wamakko, Governor Aliyu has taken a different path. It is a path that prioritises the completion of inherited projects while also initiating new ones that respond to present needs.

    This approach is not just about governance style; it is about responsibility. It is about recognising that public funds do not belong to administrations but to the people, and that projects started in their name must be completed in their interest.

    Nothing perhaps illustrates this better than the revival and completion of key water works across Sokoto State. These water projects, initiated during Senator Wamakko’s administration and abandoned during Tambuwal’s tenure, had left Sokoto grappling with an acute water crisis that peaked painfully during those years. For a state capital, it was a humiliating reality that residents depended heavily on water vendors for survival.

    Under Governor Aliyu, that narrative has changed significantly. The completion and commissioning of the Tamaje Water Scheme, valued at over N14 billion, marked a turning point in urban water supply in Sokoto. Alongside this, other critical schemes such as the Old Airport Water Scheme, Gagi Water Scheme, Mana Water Scheme, Runjin Sambo Water Scheme and Rugar Liman Water Scheme have either been completed or brought back to life. Together, these facilities now deliver millions of gallons of potable water daily, drastically easing a crisis that once defined daily life in the state.

    As far as Governor Ahmed and the people of Sokoto are concerned, this approach is not just infrastructure at work; it is governance restoring dignity. This is because, water is one of the most essential needs of humanity. Therefore, when clean water flows again through public taps and households, it does more than quench thirst. It restores confidence in leadership and improves public health outcomes in ways statistics often fail to capture.

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    Housing is another sector where Governor Aliyu’s approach to continuity and expansion stands out. Several housing estates started under Senator Wamakko were abandoned midway, leaving skeletal structures as silent monuments to policy inconsistency. Rather than discard these efforts, the current administration chose to complete them, turning abandoned sites into liveable communities.

    Housing estates at Gidan Salanke and Wajake, each comprising 500 housing units, have either been completed and delivered to the people, or are at finishing stages. Beyond completing inherited projects, the government also initiated new housing schemes, including the 500-unit luxury housing estate at Sokoto New City. These developments respond directly to housing shortages and provide decent accommodation for civil servants and residents who have long struggled with limited options.

    Within Sokoto metropolis itself, road infrastructure has received focused attention. Roads that once symbolised neglect and congestion have been rehabilitated or newly constructed, giving the capital a more organised and functional outlook. Projects such as the Chima-Rai Jumu’at Mosque Road to Mabera Roundabout, the Unguwar Rogo Police Station Junction to Mabera Roundabout, and the Mabera Roundabout to Musa Lukuwa Jumu’at Mosque stretch along the Eastern Bypass, have significantly improved mobility, reduced flooding and eased daily movement for residents.

    Beyond these major links, numerous township roads across areas like Gawon Nama, Runjin Sambo, Low-Cost, Sahara, Remen Kura and surrounding neighbourhoods have been remodelled. The effect is unmistakable. Traffic flows better, commercial activity has picked up, and residents now experience a capital city that feels deliberately planned rather than accidentally grown.

    Complementing road construction is the ongoing urban beautification programme that is steadily redefining Sokoto’s visual identity. Governor Aliyu’s administration commenced the beautification of six major roundabouts within the metropolis, with three already completed and others at varying stages of completion. Roundabouts such as Rijiya Dorawa, Ahmadu Bello Way, Sama Road, Sokoto Guest Inn, Gidan Man Ada and the Old Market Roundabout are being redesigned to improve traffic coordination while enhancing the city’s aesthetic appeal.

    When stripped of sentiments, this initiative becomes much more than some cosmetic do-over. It places Sokoto on par with other state capitals across Nigeria, projecting order, pride and intentional urban planning. It is also about creating public spaces that reflect the importance of Sokoto as a historic and administrative capital.

    When all these interventions are taken together: water works, housing estates, roads and urban beautification, a pattern becomes clear. Governor Ahmed Aliyu is not merely reacting to immediate political pressures; he is deliberately consolidating past investments while expanding the state’s development footprint. In a country where abandoning a predecessor’s project has almost become doctrine, this approach stands out sharply.

    Sokoto today feels different because it is different. Water flows where scarcity once ruled. Roads connect where isolation once persisted. Housing stands where abandonment once mocked public hope. Roundabouts welcome visitors into a city rediscovering its pride.

    Under Governor Ahmed Aliyu, Sokoto is not trapped in cycles of abandonment and restart. It is moving forward by completing what was started, correcting what was neglected and building what is necessary. That deliberate choice, more than anything else, is what defines leadership, and it is what is steadily rewriting the story of the development of Sokoto as a city and the state as a whole.

    •Mahmoud writes from Sokoto.

  • Memories of January 27, 2002 Ikeja bomb blasts

    Memories of January 27, 2002 Ikeja bomb blasts

    By Moshood Isamotu

    If Alfred Bernhard Nobel, the Swedish inventor who instituted the prestigious global Award, the Nobel Prize, were alive on January 27, 2002, he probably would have had more regrets about one of his revolutionary 355 inventions. Alfred invented dynamites that propelled discoveries of high-profile war arsenals (bombs), which changed the human destructive capacity forever. About 130 years after his death on December 10, 1896, his weapons of mass destruction are still speaking for him on war fronts across the globe in gargantuan proportions he probably never envisaged.

    Since Alfred invented the lethal instruments, the knowledge and their application have been liberalized and well-simplified. With automation, they are now being deployed like toys at the least provocation by lesser men Alfred never thought would have reason to touch his invention.

    Whether for good or ill, Alfred’s weapons have contributed to the depopulation of the world.

    On Sunday, January 27, 2002, in Lagos, some of the by-products of Alfred’s inventions – bombs- exploded and pushed over 1,000 residents to their untimely graves. It was the accidental detonation of a large stock of military high explosives at a storage facility at Ikeja Army Barrack Cantonment, which was referred to as the Lagos armoury explosion. The billion-naira bombs, abandoned and made idle for too long, had to empty themselves in fury.

    According to Live Science Plus, accidental ammunition explosions are frequent global occurrences. The Lagos explosions only joined the list of some of the biggest explosions in the world, which include the Trinity blast, the first atomic bomb in history. Dubbed “the gadget”, it was detonated at the Trinity Site near Alamogordo, New Mexico, in 1945, exploding with a force of roughly 20 kilotons of TNT. Others include Wanggongchang Explosion (China, 1626), an accidental ignition at a gunpowder armory in Beijing that killed an estimated 20,000 people; the Brescia Gunpowder Explosion (Italy, 1769), which occurred after lightning struck a bastion storing 90 tonnes of gunpowder, killing approximately 3,000 people; Halifax Explosion (Canada, 1917), considered the largest non-nuclear accidental man-made explosion. It occurred when the SS Mont-Blanc, a munitions ship, collided with another vessel, resulting in a blast that killed roughly 2,000 people and many others.

    Anyway, how many Nigerians, and even Lagosians, still remember the Ikeja Bomb Blasts of January 27, 2002? That day, the ground swallowed over 1,000 lives, mostly young and adults, in one fell swoop. Maybe those who lost their loved ones in the tragedy and those who pass through the Oke-Afa canal, where a cenotaph in memory of the lost souls was built, still remember.

    Ironically, the bombs chose Sunday, a holy day, to vent their anger on the high-density Oshodi population. Even more worrisome was the fact that people died out of panic, confusion, and anxiety by herding to the ‘swamp of death’ located at the Oke-Afa canal, albeit ignorantly.

    For about six hours, the sky on that sunny day suddenly turned chemically smoky, far from the familiar industrial smog. As from around 2 pm, the shockwave from the explosion shattered the peace of Lagos when people were supposed to be watching movies, relaxing, attending town meetings, or preparing for the new week.

    I was a witness to the deadly rage and narrowly escaped being a direct victim in the course of running into safety, like others who perished. I lived in the densely populated Mafoluku-Oshodi then, where the explosives directed their warheads.

    No matter where you stood, you would feel as if the objects were coming to land on your head. We occasionally ran into the house to take cover, but the repeated sounds of bombs and flying objects in the rooms forced us out.

    The blind, deaf, and dumb also understood there was imminent danger. No one could say what it was or where it was coming from. At this time, tall people preferred to have reduced height, and short people preferred to be tall to see what was happening.

    The repeated question on everyone’s lips was ‘What could this be?’ Parents do not know what to tell their kids. In the midst of this, visibility was getting impaired as thick, suffocating smoke enveloped. Many gasped for breath from the effects of foul fumes. At this point, people started thinking with their feet. There was no time to engage in analytical thinking and reasoning.

    Such had never been seen or experienced in Nigeria before. So, no one had a clue or a possible explanation except people at the Ikeja Army Barracks, the munitions depot. Mobile phone (relatively new then), radio, and television network had all collapsed due to the effects of the bomb blasts. The great albatross was a lack of information from any authentic source on the strange incident. At that moment, information simply equals life, and that was why the lack of it cut short many lives.

    Everywhere in Lagos was affected, with varying degrees depending on the distance from the source. Commuters on the 3rd Mainland Bridge felt the vibration of the bridge and thought it was about to cave in. Many, as far as Ikorodu, Epe, Badagry, Ota, and others, felt the impact. Some witnessed their household properties and window glass falling off due to ‘ghosts’ invasion, like the ones we see in Nollywood movies.

    In thousands, Oshodi residents, the most affected, gregariously herded towards Muritala International Airport and Ajao Estate without a clear direction. It was more than what you see in war zones. Children outpaced adults on the streets. Husbands abandoned wives for not catching up. Pastors abandoned the pulpits mid-way. The old and sick were not left out in the run to safety, while those too weak were abandoned by their loved ones.

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    At first, we headed towards Airport Road for cover, but changed direction when we realized that the gas pipelines in the axis would not make the place safe. We all sheepishly redirected towards Ajao Estate, onward to Isolo, following no one. Ignorance is costly. The sound of each explosion pushed us to move fast. As we moved, people matched on Naira notes and lost interest in them, as the world has come to an ‘end’. Many abandoned their cars by the road and started running.

    To cross from Ajao Estate to Isolo – Ejigbo side, there is Oke-Afa Canal, a concealed swampy pond, covered with grasses that eventually swallowed up over a thousand people that night. Because it was dark and with a large crowd, people rushed into it, and many sank immediately, and with more pushing behind, the death toll increased.

    I was lucky as I crossed the same Canal, filled with thick, dark industrial water, before it got discharged into the open field that turned swampy, where people died. As I was passing on the bank of the canal, I saw and heard people crying for help. But it was a case of ‘love yourself before thy neighbor’. Many who attempted to help were also dragged down and perished.

    Indeed, like drugs, expired bombs are more terrific in destruction and bad messengers when out of control or mishandled.

    Respite only came when the radio announcements for calm came. But it was too late. In about six hours, Lagos had lost over 1,000 residents.

    Long after, the government launched an enquiry, which blamed the Nigerian Army for failing to properly maintain the munitions depot when instructed to do so in 2001. George Emdin, the then commander of the Ikeja base, on January 28, 2002, while expressing apologies, said that “some efforts were being made in the recent past to try to improve the storage facility, but this accident happened before the high authorities could do what was needed”. Like many similar sad occurrences in the past, that was how everything ended.

    As we mark the anniversary of the gory experience, it is not too late for Lagos State to declare January 27 as Day of Mourning, to be marked annually like Canada’s April 28, marked as National Day to honour workers killed or injured on the job.

    •Isamotu is a public affairs commentator.

  • What Ndidi did

    What Ndidi did

    By Ray Ekpu

    The Nigerian football team, Super Eagles was gunning for a fourth AFCON title at the just concluded tournament in Morocco. It did not reach that goal. It got a bronze medal which was a consolation for many Nigerians because the team played very well. President Bola Tinubu said that the bronze was almost as good as gold. He probably said that as a way of commending the boys for their outstanding performance in the matches they played and the discipline that they displayed on and off the pitch.

    But something nearly went awfully wrong when Nigeria was to face Algeria in the quarter final in Marrakesh, a distance of five hours from the team’s residence in Fez. Our players and officials said they would boycott the trip and training sessions because their bonuses for all the four matches played were not paid. This ugly scenario has happened too many times with the Super eagles and Super Falcons.

    In November 2024, the Super Eagles boycotted training during the African World Cup playoff over a backlog of allowance issues. A few days later, the disgruntled team lost to an inferior Democratic Republic of Congo team and Nigeria’s dream of qualifying for the 2026 World Cup became just that: a dream. In 2022 Nigeria’s flag did not fly at Qatar. In this year’s World Cup, we will also be marked absent.

    But this piece is not about our failure to appear at the two World Cups. It is about our incompetence in managing our football. This incompetence has led to boycotts, threats of boycotts, protests and sit-ins by either the Super Eagles or Super Falcons. If we managed these conflicts better, our football would have achieved a lot considering the abundance of talents we have on the pitch.

    In 2004, the Super Falcons won the African Women’s Cup of Nations in South Africa. They refused to vacate their hotels because their bonuses were not paid. When the Super Falcons clinched their 8th African title by defending Cameroon, there was also money wahala. During the 2019 Women’s World Cup in France, the Super Falcons staged a sit-in protest and refused to vacate their hotel except their bonuses and allowances were paid. The girls carried their protests during Muhammadu Buhari’s tenure to the Aso Villa and to the National Assembly. The men had also brought shame to our country in several episodes of boycotts in the past. I do not want to enumerate such shameful incidents again on this page.

    There is an African proverb that states that the “war that has a take-off date never kills the lame.” Why? Because the lame can always crawl out of the war zone before the guns begin to boom. But in Nigeria that war has killed the lame very many times, an indication that we are never ready for what we should be ready for. All competitions, continental or world, have scheduled take-off dates but in Nigeria we are never ready for them. Most other countries, big, medium and small, go through these competitions without disgraceful stories from their football managing authorities. Our stories of shame in this matter occur regularly like a recurring decimal.

    This year at Morocco, we nearly got disgraced but for one man: Ndidi. Our country was saved from shame by a 29-year old footballer called Onyinye Wilfred Ndidi. When the players and officials threatened to boycott the trip to Marrakesh except their bonuses were paid, it was Ndidi who stood in the middle and led from the front. He was neither the chairman of the Nigerian Football Federation (NFF) nor the chairman of the National Sports Commission nor the minister responsible for sports. He did what those three officials failed to do. He told the players and officials that he was ready to pay their bonuses from his pocket so that the team’s spirit and unity would remain intact. This young man solved a problem that would have brought disgrace to this big country. This would have given more ammunition to those who talk derisively about our big-for-nothingness.

    Every country has its merits and its imperfections. Nigeria has them but I do not think that Nigeria is a big-for-nothing country. No. It is not. It is a country in transition, a country in search of its dream, its destiny. And the fact that we have a 29-year old man who stood up for Nigeria when it mattered most means that Nigeria has the potential to be great. It is the duty of our leaders to take the country to that mountain.

    Ndidi was born in Lagos. He went to Command Children’s School and later Nath Academy where he went to learn the nuts and bolts of footballing. While he was keeping his eyes on opportunities in football, he was hawking all sorts of things in the busy Lagos traffic where gridlock provides a market for sellers and buyers. In 2015, the opportunity came and he signed to play in Belgium for a club called Genk. That was a dream come true. He later joined Leicester City Club where he played as a defensive midfielder. Even though he was making tons of money as a footballer, he knew that money alone was not enough. He wanted to improve his education, something that Nigeria did not offer him at a higher level. After his training on the football pitch, he decided to go for a different type of training in a classroom. In May 2019, he started studying for a degree in Business and Management at De Montfort University in London. He decided to do something for kids in Nigeria who would like to play football as well as go to school.

    He said some years ago: “Back home, many kids aren’t able to go to school because their parents can’t afford it. I want to set up a football resort where people can stay and play football while getting an education at the same time.”  He was only 22 when he conceived of this giving-back idea. This resort will take kids off the streets, off crime, off cultism, off cocaine, off conflicts that arise from idleness. He is buying an umbrella for the kids so that when the rains come, they will be sheltered. He is not only buying a future for himself, he is also buying a future for young people he does not even know so that they do not become the dregs of our society.

    It is obvious, very obvious, that Ndidi has a good heart, a heart of compassion. There are many people who make plenty money in their chosen professions but do not care about helping the helpless. Instead, they engage in the illusions of grandeur as a means of taking themselves into the upper crust of society. Ndidi is not one of them.

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     He has obviously made tons of money in football. There is no one who plays in any of the big leagues abroad that is not super rich. Instead of allowing the Super Eagles to boycott training and the trip to Marrakesh, Ndidi offered to spend his money on the team so that there will be harmony. He did not care whether the money would be refunded to him if he paid the players and officials. He was just taking a personal decision that would help the team to progress in the competition, a decision that would also save the country from disgrace. That is the spelling of leadership. Is that also the spelling of Good Samaritanism?

    It was the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher who said “No one would remember the Good Samaritan if he only had good intentions, he had money as well.” Yes. Ndidi had good intentions as well as money, with which to execute his good intentions. The other point is that the accumulated bonuses must have amounted to a huge sum of money and yet it was not a source of worry to Ndidi. He did not worry whether the payment, if made to the players, would become a debt whose repayment period was unknown. He did not also worry that the money, if paid to the players and officials, would create for him a powerful enemy that he could not harass for the refund of his money quickly.

    There is ample hypnotism about football. That is why the stadiums are always full whether there is sunshine or rainfall. And that is why a football player and lover called Ndidi decided to take the risk of pledging to drop millions of dollars on the accounts of the players and officials so that the game goes on.

     Can Nigeria manage football differently, efficiently? That is a question that we have not been able to answer satisfactorily for decades.       

  • Tribute to Yakubu Mohammed: A correction

    Tribute to Yakubu Mohammed: A correction

    • By Mohammed Haruna

    My attention has been drawn to one serious factual error in my tribute to Yakubu Mohammed. I said in the sixth paragraph that two of the three graduates who joined myself and Yakubu at the New Nigerian in 1976, namely Rufa’i Ibrahim and Sule Iyaji, were no longer alive.

    My attention was drawn to the fact that Iyaji is alive and well. Indeed, I spoke with him after I got his phone number from Professor Sam Egwu, INEC’s Resident Electoral Commissioner for Benue State, who first drew my attention to the error.

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    Not only did Iyaji confirm that he is well and alive, but he also reminded me that after his stint at Peugeot Automobile of Nigeria as its spokesman, he ventured into politics, where he eventually rose to be the Deputy Governor of Benue State when his Igala ethnic group was the second largest in the State after the Tivs. This was before the Igalas were carved into Kogi State.

    I have since apologised to Iyaji for pronouncing him dead while alive and well. I needed to apologise to him and his family in public.

  • Junta makeover in Guinea

    Junta makeover in Guinea

    A couple of weeks ago in Guinea, Mamady Doumbouya, a general who led a 2021 military takeover in the West African country, got sworn in as civilian president. He thereby transitioned from being a military usurper in power to becoming a popularly  elected ruler of his people. Doumbouya, 41, took office for a presidential term that was only recently elongated to seven years, from a previous timeline of five years. Under new alterations to Guinea’s constitution, the term is renewable once.

    The presidential inauguration took place in front of tens of thousands of supporters and several heads of state, Doumbouya having been declared winner of a poll that held 28th December, 2025, in his country. Presidents from Rwanda, The Gambia, Senegal and some other African countries as well as pricipals of the African Union and the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) Commission were in attendance. Nigeria’s Vice President Kashim Shettima represented President Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the event, alongside the vice presidents of China, Ghana and Equatorial Guinea. Even officials from France and the United States were on hand. Assimi Goïta, a general who has led neighbouring Mali since a military takeover in 2020, also graced the occasion.

    The election on which Doumbouya rode to shed his military garb was the first in Guinea since he toppled President Alpha Condé four years earlier. He had justified that military takeover on alleged corruption and economic mismanagement under Condé, who in 2010 became the country’s first freely elected president since its 1958 independence from France. During the four years of junta rule, the military dissolved state institutions and suspended Guinea’s constitution as it negotiated with regional bodies, including ECOWAS, on restoration of democratic civilian government. Meanwhile, the junta was widely reported to have cracked down on civil liberties, banned protests and harassed political opponents under Doumbouya’s leadership. Whereas he initially pledged not to run for president when he seized power, Doumbouya stood election against eight other candidates in the December 2025 election. Reports said formidable opponents stayed away in exile, and the opposition at some point called for poll boycott . Following the election, Guinea’s supreme court affirmed Doumbouya as having received 86.7 percent of the vote.

    Besides reneging on his initial promise not to run for election, Doumbouya oversaw the rewriting of Guinea’s constitution to permit members of the military leadership to run for office, and extend the presidential term from five years to seven. Critics argued that his clampdown on political opponents and dissent left him with no major challenger in the December poll, such that analysts predicted an easy victory for him. The election runner-up who won 6.59 percent of the vote filed a petition accusing Guinea’s electoral body of manipulating the results in Doumbouya’s favour, but he withdrew the petition even before the supreme court gave a verdict.

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    Dressed in a traditional gown at his inauguration as president in a ceremony at the General Lansana Conte Stadium on the outskirts of Conakry, the Guinean capital, Doumbouya swore an oath to uphold the constitution that was only in September altered to allow him to stand for election. “I swear before God and before the people of Guinea, on my honour, to respect and faithfully enforce the Constitution, the laws, regulations and judicial decisions,” he said. Accompanied by his wife, Lauriane Doumbouya, he told the capacity-filled arena he would uphold the tenets of democracy, transparent governance and the interest of all Guineans at all times. He also stressed that under his watch, the country’s peace and national cohesion would not be compromised. His ascension as an elected president is the perfect playbook for makeover from junta rule to civil rule.

    From the moment he seized power in September 2021, Doumbouya showed a knack for influencing the political space. Just 36 years old at the time, the broad-shouldered colonel and a relatively unknown member of Guinea’s elite army unit accused the government of ousted Condé of having disregarded democratic principles and that citizens’ rights were trampled on. But his own time as junta head did not exactly promote democratic rights. While seemingly enjoying some popular support because many Guineans were frustrated with the failures of civilian leadership, politicians questioned Doumbouya’s democratic credentials because political parties were banned by his junta, activists allegedly disappeared mysteriously and media outlets were shut down. Even the election he won by landslide was argued to be a sham as he ran in a severely depleted field. A former prime minister now on exile was reported describing the process as a charade and the outcome “fabricated.”

    Ahead of his poll victory, the soldier-man, now a general, often ditched his military camouflage in favour of traditional Guinean attire of loose-fitting robes with elaborate embroidery or casual sportswear. He maximised populist opportunities, with pictures showing him at the opening of schools, or transport and mining infrastructure, or cycling through the streets of Conakry, the capital. The message, obviously, was that he is a man of action working for the people. “He presented an image of someone who can be close to civilians, who fits with being a civilian leader and can be a representative of the people,” one analyst was cited saying. “In some ways, he was distancing himself from what brought him to power namely a coup, and the fact that his entire career has been in the military,” the analyst added.

    Doumbouya’s background aided his political transformation. In the 15 years before he seized power, he gained extensive international exposure, including being educated in France and serving in the French foreign legion. He was at different points of his career in Afghanistan, Ivory Coast, Djibouti, Central African Republic, Israel, Cyprus and the United Kingdom. And because the 2021 coup was widely welcomed by Guineans, he has remained a popular figure.

    Since his junta days, the new president cultivated a reputation for seeking to put Guineans in control of their own economic destiny. In a country grappling with high levels of poverty despite abundant natural resources, including the world’s largest reserves of bauxite and iron ore deposits, this aspiration struck a chord. Doumbouya’s leadership attracted a 75 percent Chinese-owned mining project to revitalise Guinea’s ailing economy, with production commencing last year at a major iron ore site after decades of inaction. The success or otherwise of this project may define his incoming presidency, as he appears determined to keep some of the processing and value-added parts of the industry in Guinean hands to ensure greater benefits. Across the broader mining sector, his government cancelled dozens of contracts over the past year where it was felt that affected firms were not investing in Guinea. “This move towards resource nationalism makes him look like a local hero, like he’s really fighting for the rights of his citizens even if that means business disruptions,” one analyst was reported saying.

    The emphasis on national interest also informed a pragmatic approach to international relations. Unlike coup leaders elsewhere in the sub-region, Doumbouya has not outright rejected former colonial power, France, in favour of Russia. But neither, despite his background in France and having a French wife, has he been accused of being a puppet of Paris. He very much wants to be seen as running things primarily in the interests of his country’s 15 million population, half of which is currently mired in poverty and experiencing record levels of food insecurity according to World Food Program (WFP) reports.

    With his switch from khaki to civvies and the world applauding, Doumbouya holds out a guidelight to military usurpers digging their heels into power elsewhere. Already in West Africa, juntas in the Sahel states of Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger have spurned international pressure for swift return to civilian rule and decreed prolonged transitions. In Mali, Goïta’s government approved a bill for a five-year renewable term for the head of state, following a national dialogue boycotted by political parties. In Burkina Faso, the junta led by Captain Ibrahim Traoré extended its rule till at least 2029, reneging on an earlier promise to hold elections in 2024. In Niger, coup leader Abdourahamane Tchiani was in recent months sworn in for a five-year transition, aiming to rule until 2030 at least.

    These junta leaders initially postured as interim messiahs interested in stabilising their countries and swiftly handing over to elected dispensations in which they would take no part. If they now want to take a cue from Doumbouya, they should, at least, submit to electoral processes to whitewash their lust for power.

    •Please join me on kayodeidowu.blogspot.be for conversation.

  • Rural insecurity behind Nigeria’s food crisis

    Rural insecurity behind Nigeria’s food crisis

    • By Lekan Olayiwola

    Nigeria’s food crisis is often described in the language of numbers: inflation rates, tonnage of grains lost, millions displaced, and millions hungry. These figures matter but they obscure a deeper truth that is now impossible to ignore. Nigeria’s food insecurity is inseparable from its peace deficit.

    Not peace understood narrowly as the absence of war, but peace as the presence of functioning rural systems including security, markets, trust, and governance that allow food to move from soil to table. It is time to rethink priorities, align food policy with peacebuilding, and to address blindspots that well-intentioned strategies have left untouched.

    Food security is a peace question, not only an agricultural one

    Over 90% of Nigeria’s food is produced by smallholder farmers. When these farmers are displaced, intimidated, or cut off from markets, food security collapses regardless of how many fertiliser programmes or mechanisation schemes exist on paper. Since 2019, more than 2.2 million Nigerians have been displaced by farmer–herder violence, banditry, and insurgency, largely across the Middle Belt and northern states.

    These are not marginal regions. They are core food-producing zones whose disruption reverberates nationally. Broken planting cycles reduce supply; insecurity raises transport costs; scarcity feeds inflation. Food inflation is therefore not merely a macroeconomic problem. It is the economic expression of unresolved rural conflict.

    Collapsing rural market systems

    The least discussed and most consequential dimension of Nigeria’s food crisis is the collapse of rural market systems and logistics networks. Markets are institutions of trust not just places of exchange. Violence disrupts this trust long before it destroys production. Traders stop travelling. Storage facilities fall idle. Processing mills shut down. Informal credit dries up. What remains is a fragmented economy where food may exist in pockets but cannot move.

    This explains a paradox increasingly visible across Nigeria: surplus rotting in some areas, hunger intensifying in others, and prices rising everywhere. It also explains why well-meaning humanitarian cash transfers sometimes backfire. Where local supply chains are broken, cash fuels demand for imported processed food rather than stimulating local agriculture. The result is dependency without recovery.

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    Mapping market collapse: Borno, Zamfara and Benue

    National averages conceal profound regional differences. Understanding where and how markets have collapsed is essential to crafting effective policy. In Borno State (aid dependency without markets), the epicentre of the Boko Haram and ISWAP insurgency, agricultural collapse is near-total in many local government areas. Farmers have been displaced into camps; vast tracts of arable land are inaccessible. Markets exist physically, but function weakly, sustained largely by humanitarian supply chains rather than local production.

    With the World Food Programme now warning that assistance will be cut from over one million people to fewer than 100,000 due to funding shortfalls, Borno faces a dangerous transition from aid-supported survival to market failure without a bridge in between. Food insecurity here is acute not only because of violence, but because no viable rural market system is ready to replace humanitarian distribution.

    Zamfara State (production under extortion) represents a different pathology. Farming has not disappeared, but it has been absorbed into a criminal economy. Local intelligence and field reports consistently show that farmers who remain on their land are forced to pay “taxes” to armed groups to plant, harvest, or transport produce.

    The result is a shadow price system. Food is grown, but at inflated cost; traders avoid the region; transporters charge premiums or refuse routes altogether. What reaches national markets arrives expensive and scarce. Here, food inflation is driven less by displacement than by violent rent-seeking embedded in rural production.

    Benue State (market disruption in the breadbasket), often called Nigeria’s “food basket”, illustrates perhaps the most overlooked danger. Large-scale displacement from farming communities has not only reduced output, but fractured local markets that once connected surplus producers to urban consumers.

    Unlike Borno, Benue has not been heavily humanitarianised. Unlike Zamfara, criminal control is more diffuse. The damage lies in the erosion of trust, mobility, and coordination; farmers fear returning, traders fear rural routes, and markets hollow out quietly. The national food system loses one of its most reliable anchors.

    Implications of the UN hunger warnings

    UN agencies project that nearly 35 million Nigerians may face acute food insecurity in 2026, with northern states disproportionately affected. These warnings are often read as humanitarian alerts. They should also be read as economic and political signals. Crucially, the crisis is unfolding alongside a collapse in global humanitarian funding.

    In northeast Nigeria, food aid is being cut precisely as the lean season approaches. This creates what field analysts describe as a “hunger vacuum”; aid withdraws before markets recover, leaving communities with neither production nor purchasing power. Without functioning rural markets, humanitarian withdrawal does not restore self-reliance; it accelerates crisis.

    Government policy: Necessary, But not sufficient

    Vice President Kashim Shettima’s remarks at the World Economic Forum in Davos correctly framed food security as a national security issue. Programmes focused on climate-resilient crops, agricultural finance, and “food security corridors” acknowledge key challenges. Yet there remains a disconnect between policy design and rural reality.

    Most interventions assume that farmers can access land, produce can reach markets, and that markets exist to absorb supply. In many conflict-affected regions, none of these assumptions hold. Fertiliser is irrelevant if fields are inaccessible. Improved seeds are meaningless if transport corridors are unsafe. Credit schemes falter where traders have withdrawn. This is not a failure of intent. It is a gap in diagnosis.

    Why peacebuilding must enter food policy

    Food security strategies that ignore peacebuilding risk becoming exercises in technical futility. Security operations alone cannot rebuild markets; neither can subsidies without safety. What is needed is a shift from seeing peace and food as separate policy domains to recognising them as mutually reinforcing systems.

    This includes securing rural trade corridors, not only farms, to allow produce to move safely. Rebuilding local markets and storage infrastructure alongside agricultural support. Supporting community-level dispute resolution over land and mobility, restoring the social contracts that underpin production. Designing hybrid aid–market models that gradually replace food handouts with local procurement and market stimulation.

    From emergency response to structural repair

    Nigeria’s food crisis did not emerge overnight, and it will not be resolved by slogans or summits. It is the cumulative result of insecurity, governance gaps, and the slow erosion of rural systems that once worked. The path forward lies not in choosing between security, agriculture, or humanitarian action, but in integrating them. Sustainable peace is not a by-product of food security; it is one of its foundations.

    If policy can recognise this, treating market restoration with the same seriousness as fertiliser distribution, Nigeria can begin to stabilise not just prices, but livelihoods. The alternative is a cycle of crisis management that grows more expensive, more fragile, and more dangerous with each passing season.

    •Olayiwola is a peace & conflict researcher/policy analyst. He can be reached at lekanolayiwola@gmail.com