Tag: Nigeria

• By Bernard M. Doro & Mohamed M. Malick Fall

Nigeria is entering a pivotal moment in its humanitarian response journey.

As one of eight transition countries in the global Humanitarian Reset, Nigeria faces a stark reality: humanitarian needs remain persistently high, while international funding continues to drastically shrink. This tension is forcing a necessary reckoning on how humanitarian assistance is delivered — and, more importantly, who leads it.

Nowhere is the challenge more visible than in north-east Nigeria. In Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states alone, an estimated 5.9 million people will require humanitarian assistance in 2026. Yet available resources fall far short of meeting this demand. The 2026 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan seeks US$516 million, prioritising 2.5 million people in the most acute need of life-saving support — less than half of those who require humanitarian assistance.

These figures point to a simple truth: business as usual is no longer viable. The future of humanitarian action in Nigeria must be owned, led and sustained by Nigerian institutions and organisations, with international partners playing a supportive and enabling role.

This shift lies at the heart of the Humanitarian Reset — a collective commitment by global humanitarian actors to deliver faster, and more accountable assistance at a time when the system is overstretched and under-resourced. The reset calls for a sharper focus on lifesaving priorities, more agile and context-specific delivery, stronger in-country leadership, deeper engagement with affected communities, and a renewed defence of humanitarian principles. At its core, it is both a reform agenda and a mind-set shift: from control to collaboration, from competition to complementarity, and from caution to courage.

For Nigeria, this transition must begin with government leadership.

Federal and state authorities are closest to affected populations. They carry the constitutional responsibility to protect citizens and are best positioned to align humanitarian action with national priorities. A nationally led humanitarian model requires more than coordination; it demands increased domestic financing, and sustained investment in systems that help communities withstand future shocks. No humanitarian response can be durable if the government is not firmly in the driver’s seat.

Equally central to this transition are national organisations. Nigerian civil society and community-based organisations bring deep contextual knowledge, social legitimacy and long-term presence that international actors cannot replicate. In many hard-to-reach areas, they are the only responders with consistent access. Experience shows that when local organisations are trusted, adequately resourced and meaningfully included in decision-making, humanitarian responses become more efficient, more accountable and more relevant to community needs.

Localisation, therefore, is not a slogan or a concession. It is a practical and necessary pathway to sustaining impact in an era of declining external funding.

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Encouragingly, this shift is already underway. The Nigeria Humanitarian Fund, managed by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), has steadily increased the proportion of funding channelled through national non-governmental organisations. In 2025, national NGOs received a record 70 per cent of direct allocations. Once considered peripheral actors, these organisations have strengthened financial controls, improved compliance systems, expanded technical expertise and demonstrated strong risk management. Women-led organisations, in particular, are emerging as critical humanitarian actors, shaping priorities and amplifying community voices that are too often marginalised. These gains illustrate what is possible when investment in local capacity is deliberate.

Yet localisation is about far more than funding flows.

It requires a fundamental shift in how partnerships are conceived and managed. Risk management must evolve from exclusion to shared responsibility. Technical support must move beyond project supervision towards genuine knowledge transfer and institutional strengthening. Over time, international humanitarian actors should step back from direct implementation and focus more on advisory roles, advocacy and resource mobilisation in support of national partners.

Local organisations, for their part, must be recognised as equal partners — not extensions of international agencies. They need predictable financing,  better access to pooled funds and structured opportunities to influence humanitarian strategy.

Importantly, local civil society must also be empowered as agents of change. Sustainable progress depends on advocacy — changing political priorities, challenging harmful narratives and defending the rights of people affected by conflict and disaster. Affected communities should never be viewed as passive victims. They are people with dignity, agency and rights, and local organisations are best placed to champion those rights.

The transition of the humanitarian operation in Nigeria also demands stronger alignment between humanitarian and development efforts.

The Humanitarian Reset creates space for a more coherent approach in which emergency action focuses on saving lives, while development frameworks — including national plans and the UN Sustainable Development Cooperation Framework — address the structural drivers of vulnerability.

Insecurity, underdevelopment and climate risks require long term solutions.

Investments in food systems, basic services, disaster risk reduction and anticipatory action are essential to reducing humanitarian caseloads over time. Without these investments, emergency needs will continue to outpace available resources, perpetuating the cycle of crisis response.

As the 2026 Humanitarian Needs and Response Plan is launched, the message is unmistakable.

The era of internationally financed, internationally delivered humanitarian operations in Nigeria is drawing to a close. The next phase belongs to Nigeria itself. To the institutions that set policy, the state authorities that coordinate response, national organisations that know their communities best, and the citizens who have borne the greatest burden for far too long.

For the United Nations and its partners, the role is clear: support this transition. Strengthen capacity where needed. Reinforce partnerships at all levels. Mobilise resources alongside government. And ensure that people affected by crises remain firmly at the centre of every decision.

Ultimately, localisation is about dignity.

It is about recognising that communities must lead the solutions to the challenges they face.

Nigeria’s humanitarian future depends on embracing this shift fully and without hesitation. The opportunity is present. The responsibility is shared. And the time to act is now.

•Dr. Doro is Minister of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction.  Fall is the United Nations Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Nigeria.

By Oluwole Ogundele

Apart from the challenges of neo-colonialism and/or cultural imperialism including fierce global power play, the Nigerian modes of leadership across the board, are promoting greater underdevelopment. Leadership in this context goes beyond the spheres of local, state and federal engagements. Indeed, our primary, secondary and tertiary institutions are not an exception. Every sub-system of the society has its leadership structure.  However, the central goal of any leadership is service to humanity on a robust scale. That is to say, that responsibility and responsiveness occupy centre stage in the scheme of things. But shockingly, many leaders in this part of the world fail to appreciate let alone appropriate the above time-tested principle.

Therefore, holding leadership positions (as far as most Nigerians are concerned) is a golden opportunity to enrich themselves through the lens of maximum corruption. Corruption is rubbishing their sanity. Nigeria has a lot of institutional frameworks to serve as checks and balances. But those in charge have consistently bastardised almost everything. Without mincing words, most of the country’s institutions are not working. The megalomaniacs have sent these institutions to the guillotine. Indeed, Nigeria is in a mess. Who will save us from ourselves?

The overall head of a system or sub-system becomes unreachable and unmindful of the agonies of the people he is supposed to lead. This negative attitude is inseparable from some inflated ego. The ordinary people despite their contributions to the survival of the system are often treated like a bunch of trash. Dissenting voices are quickly and tactically silenced.  The body language of an average Nigerian leader is that the followers should wait for their turn or get punished. Not surprisingly, most people including NGOs and other pressure groups have gone to sleep. This is dangerous for Nigeria’s collective progress.

The Nigerian academia needs to show much more commitment to the promotion of high ideals. The university is supposed to be a model to the larger society. That was the narrative in the past.  Academics should not join the evilly crowd despite the economic hardships ravaging the land. A great deal of sanity is needed.  In this connection, I salute our past heroes in the academia for their fiscal discipline, meticulousness and uncommon dignity. The Nigerian society and the entirety of the global community respected them. Most (if not all of them) refused to serve as errand boys for some political class members. Today, the narrative has changed.

The youth are now being polluted and de-culturalised more than hitherto by our leaders.  They (the youth) hear every day about maximum looting of the public wealth by leaders and yet most people continue to celebrate them. Their biographies are all over the place. For how long is Nigeria going to continue to romanticise their abusers and thieves?  The future of Nigeria is certainly very bleak. Everybody is waiting for his turn to loot the commonwealth while the toiling masses continue to wail.

It seems to me, that demons are let loose. Material poverty and greed are some of the basic underlying factors for poor leadership culture in Nigeria.  Salaries of all categories of workers are grossly inadequate. This ugly situation leads to some survival instincts enshrined in all kinds of immorality and/or criminality. No government can reduce insecurity and looseness in the various administrative offices to the barest minimum, in the face of hyper-inflation that rubbishes workers’ salaries.  Although President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is working round the clock, he still needs to do much more to correct the imbalance.  Shameful romanticisation of bureaucratic bottlenecks is a disgusting administrative culture largely traceable to corruption. We must reject it.  For instance, hiding files of innocent people in order to get bribes is gradually becoming a way of life. Their computers or servers are always having fake technical problems. In Nigeria servers are regularly having malaria fever or coughs and bribes are the medications.  What a country! Although some people are pathologically corrupt and irresponsive, I still feel that meaningful wages for workers can go a long way in dousing (to a reasonable extent) the tensions in our system.  Material poverty promotes corruption in the offices.

The senior officers who are supposed to ensure smooth operations in a given division look the other way. This leads to helplessness of gargantuan proportions. Monitoring remains a critical component of administrative operations. It engenders efficiency, accountability, transparency and probity. However, all these elements of healthy administration can be revived in the face of determination. Sustainable development is anchored to the above elements. PBAT can seamlessly test my hypothesis by approving realistic wages for the Nigerian workers across the board. I believe that with better wages, bribes and other corrupt practices would be reduced to the barest minimum. This is a non-kinetic and humane approach to poverty alleviation. Without close monitoring of how government financial resources are being used by the different leaders, corruption would continue to go from bad to worse.

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It is a fact, that in Britain and America among other parts of the developed world, institutions such as parliament and judiciary are respected. Nobody is above the law of the land. The structures are not put in place for cosmetic reasons. They are meant to serve as checks and balances in order to promote robust human societies. These are societies defined and ruled by mutuality of respect, empathy and compassion.

A gross lack of seriousness is an invitation to a chaotic present and an unhealthy future.  Integrity has gone to the dogs. Today’s leaders (with a few exceptions) have no space for most of the time-tested, noble African values and value systems. These are indigenous values embedded in idealism as opposed to unholy materialism or avarice/hedonism. Things are falling apart but the centre can still hold, with the sophisticated intervention of President Tinubu. We need a revolution in administration. This has to be baked into workable laws in the interest of sustainability. Promotions must be merit-based. Irresponsible workers should get the boot. Scrutinisation coupled with actions on reports/allegations bordering on impropriety is critical to progress. The monitors across the spectrum must also be secretly monitored. Unfettered impunity has to end. Currently, there is no fear of punishment. Anything goes!

Locusts are having a field day as if nobody is in charge. Certainly, PBAT has the uncommon capacity to change the ugly narrative in the interest of a robust Nigerian society. There are a lot of avoidable stresses and strains. Nigerians (with the exception of the political class members and their gluttonous business associates) are bleeding profusely.

Leadership at every level must wake up. State governors, local government chairmen, ministers, university vice chancellors and polytechnic rectors need to wake up from their slumber. PBAT alone cannot successfully do the job.  He is not a magician. Most Nigerian leaders need deliverance from the bondage of stone age arrogance or exaggerated sense of self-importance, at the expense of sophisticated performance. The Nigerian ship is drifting inside the turbulent ocean of modern globalisation. There is an urgent need for a rescue operation.

•Prof Ogundele is of Dept. of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Ibadan.