SOCIETY

In 2024, about 307 million people in Africa were identified as being chronically hungry. Globally more than a billion people are unable to afford a healthy diet. Despite this, a small group of African nations have made real progress combating hunger even in the face of steep food price inflation. Gambia, Liberia, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, Togo, Uganda, Tanzania and Zimbabwe have all reduced hunger even as prices soared in recent years. Zimbabwe did this while battling hyperinflation at some point.

The world was hit by multiple crises between 2020 and 2024. The covid pandemic caused prices to rise while lockdowns disrupted supply chains and shipping cost surged. Then the war in Ukraine sent food, fuel, and fertilizer prices skyrocketing. This prompted wealthy nations to roll out massive stimulus packages in order to avert a recession but they were forced to reverse course with steep interest rate hikes as inflation threatened to get out of hand.

Nations that depend on food imports like the nations of sub-Saharan Africa got the worst of the crises, as they saw their food import costs undergo huge amplifications. The result of this was that hunger rose faster in sub-Saharan Africa faster than any other region of the world.

Even so, the small group of countries mentioned above reduced hunger by 1.2 to 2 percent since 2021. They are small but measurable gains. The countries combined targeted policies to cushion the impact of inflation: social protection programs, tax relief on food, price controls, and agricultural subsidies to support farmers. They also refrained from introducing trade restrictions that could distort markets.

As the shocks from these crises hit, policymakers in these countries shielded their most vulnerable populations. As food prices spiraled, they expanded social safety nets – from cash transfers to school meals and food-for-work programs. This prevented the most vulnerable households from sliding deeper into hunger. In Togo, government cash transfers were especially effective in mitigating the impact of soaring prices.

Many African countries cut or suspended food taxes and imposed temporary price caps. This provided short-term relief and helped avert an even deeper deterioration in food security. In Tanzania and Zimbabwe, well-targeted agricultural production subsidies were part of the balanced policy mix. Their governments renewed efforts to support farmers, particularly with fertilizers and seeds, in order to boost domestic supply and reduce reliance on imported staples.

It is important to note that the countries that made gains in hunger reduction didn’t resort to heavy-handed, long-term trade barriers. By avoiding such restrictions, they steered clear of market distortions, which ultimately undermine food security.

The most reliable path to sustainably lowering food prices is for governments to invest in their agrifood systems. Advancing agricultural R&D, investing in transport and storage infrastructure, and strengthening processing and agribusiness would help address vulnerabilities along the chain from production through distribution to consumption. When supply chains are strong, prices are less volatile.

In times of crisis, governments must balance immediate relief with structural reforms to build resilience, but policy recommendations must be tailored to each country’s unique circumstances.

Africa is on the frontline of the global fight against hunger. If current trends continue, nearly 60 percent of the world’s chronically hungry will be living in Africa by 2030. Changing this trajectory rests in the hands of countries themselves.

Background

In the new millennium, the fight to end hunger on the African continent has been a significant struggle. There had been progress in the fight against hunger from the start of the new millennium up until about 2015, but since then there have been a reversal of earlier gains largely due to global and regional shocks. As a result, Africa is the continent with the highest percentage of the world’s undernourished, projected to be about 60% by 2030.

Some of the drivers of this unfortunate situation include the following:

Conflict and Instability

These constitute the primary driver. Armed conflicts, civil strife and political instability are the single greatest cause of food insecurity on the continent. They cause food insecurity by disrupting destroying infrastructure (roads, markets), blocking humanitarian aid access, and forcing farmers off their land, leading to acute shortages and famine-like conditions.

Climate Change and Extreme Weather

Africa is highly vulnerable to the phenomenon of climate change, which has intensified over the last two decades. The two major natural disasters that increasingly plague the continent as a result of this are severe droughts, which wipe out crops and livestock and conversely, devastating floods, which destroy harvest and arable land.  These events erode livelihoods and push populations deeper into food insecurity.

Economic Slowdown and Price Shocks

In recent times, Africa has had to deal with dastardly combination of high poverty rates and weak growth on one hand, and global inflation spurring price hikes on the other. The high levels of poverty leave many on the continent vulnerable to price shocks, while major events with global repercussions like the covid pandemic and the war in Ukraine have caused massive food price inflation. This has happened because Africa is heavily reliant on food imports, especially of wheat and fertilizer. High global prices translate to a surge in domestic food costs, putting a healthy diet out of the reach of many and intensifying acute hunger. Adding to the misery is Africa’s high international debt burden, which severely limits the ability of African governments to invest in critical long-term areas like agricultural research, irrigation, and social safety nets.

Systemic and Structural Factors

These take myriad forms including low agricultural productivity, which stems from the lack of investment in modern farming techniques, irrigation, and quality inputs (seeds, fertilizer) keeps yields low and non-resilient to weather changes; poor infrastructure such as inadequate storage facilities and transport networks lead to high post-harvest losses and prevent food from reaching markets and hungry communities efficiently; weak governance and corruption, which can undermine national food policies and the effective distribution of aid and resources.

There having various responses to the African hunger crisis, which has involved major pan-African strategies, specific investment frameworks, and scaling up humanitarian/social protection programs. Despite these efforts, the growing severity of conflict and the intensity of climate shocks have largely outpaced the progress in building resilient food systems, leading to the current high and rising levels of hunger across much of the continent.

Last friday March 6, by constituting an 11-member committee to actualize the  incorporation of the Grid Asset Management Company Limited (GAMCO), president Bola Tinubu seemed to have heeded the call by Nigerians for him to fulfil his campaign promise that under his watch Nigeria will experience steady electricity supply and spare the populace the menace of unsteady power supply which the long suffering masses have been grappling with for decades.

The Chief of Staff to the President, my good friend, Rt.Hon.Femi Gbajabiamila, who inaugurated the committee on behalf of  President Tinubu, underscored the purpose of the committee:

“The proposed establishment of GAMCO is one of the revolutionary steps taken by Mr President and this administration in the all – important power sector. We are here for the inauguration of the Committee on Grid Asset Management Company (GAMCO), which is basically to optimise and revolutionise power generation, and in particular, the grid and transmission sector.”

Continuing, he called on members to align with the President’s vision in proposing the formation of GAMCO and to stick to the committee’s mandate, which is to conduct a comprehensive review of existing laws, regulations, policies, and institutional frameworks governing the electricity value chain, including generation, transmission, distribution, and market operations.

The task given the committee, which ordinarily falls within the purview of the line minister, suggests to me that President Tinubu may not be satisfied with the policies and programmes of the incumbent Minister of Power, Mr Adebayo Adelabu, who has been on the saddle since August 2023 and has come up with a rash of policies and programmes such as the electricity multi-bands tariff system, which most electricity consumers in Nigeria regard as a scam and therefore a sore point between the administration and the masses.

Most recently, Minister Adelabu’s last policy decision before GAMCO was introduced last Friday, March 6, was the unveiling of a so-called 10-year rescue plan to revive manpower shortage in the electricity sector, which essentially is about breaking up the TCN into two government agencies, instead of doing the ideal thing, which is to invite private sector investors to participate in the transmission aspect of the electricity ecosystem in Nigeria.

Part of the minister’s plan was also the training of 1,200 electrical engineers and prioritization of local contractors under a “Nigeria First” procurement policy.

Other initiatives under the watch of the minister include:

– Electricity Act 2023: Devolving regulatory powers to subnational governments and promoting competition and private sector participation.

– Metering Initiative: Securing ₦700 billion to deploy 1.1 million meters by end-2025 and 2 million annually for five years.

– Renewable Energy Expansion: Mobilizing $2 billion for renewable energy projects and increasing power access across rural and underserved communities.

It is interesting to note that apart from the signing into law of the electricity act 2023, the objectives of Adelabu’s power sector reforms did not make the desired impact.

Perhaps that is why President Tinubu seems to have discountenanced them by introducing the GAMCO, which he is taking charge of from the presidency, as reflected by the fact that it is his chief of staff, Gbajabiamila (not Minister of Power Adelabu), who is leading the committee, which is more or less a rescue team for the electricity sector.

Incidentally, when Minister Adelabu introduced his last policy measures(10 years plan), which were suboptimal in my view, l expressed my reservations with readers in my column of november 6 last year.

Now, before reproducing the piece under reference, it is imperative that l point out that there is a general belief by most members of the commentariat (media gate keepers and public intellectuals) that government does not listen to public opionions conveyed via interventions by columnists and television/radio show hosts.

But as evidenced by the formation of GAMCO by President Tinubu, Aso Rock Villa listens to the voices of the critical mass of Nigerians on the streets, conveyed by the mass media and not only of those in the corridors of power.

Hence, GAMCO has been introduced to remedy the age long electricity power shortage, which has been a handicap and obstacle to Nigeria’s industrial development.

In the article titled “On Boosting Electricity Supply in Nigeria: Why Minister Adelabu’s Approach Misses the Mark” which was published on November 6 in this column, l criticized Minister Adebayo Adelabu’s strategy to improve Nigeria’s electricity supply by arguing that the minister’s proposal to split the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN) into two government-controlled entities is flawed and won’t address the root cause of the problem – a broken transmission system.

I then highlighted that Nigeria’s power generation capacity is around 12,000 megawatts, but only 5,000 megawatts are being utilised due to transmission constraints.

Therefore, I suggested that the government should liberalize transmission, encourage private investment, and focus on renewable energy solutions to unlock Nigeria’s economic potential.

In that piece l also emphasized that Nigeria needs a modern, investment-driven grid, not more bureaucracy.

Readers, can imagine how elated l am to observe that 5 months after l expressed the view, it would appear as if president Tinubu shares my opinion on the poor performance of the minister of power, hence he opted to take charge of the critically important electricity supply sector via the establishment of GAMCO inaugurated last friday March 6 aimed at addressing most of the isssues raised in my ealier referenced article which constitute the bulk of the terms of reference for GAMCO.

For context, below is the article first published five (5) months ago on November 6, 2025 titled  : On boosting electricity supply in Nigeria: Why minister Adelabu’s approach misses the mark?

“Twelve years after Nigeria privatised its power sector, the country — with over 220 million citizens — still struggles to supply barely 5,000 megawatts of electricity. Meanwhile, generation companies can produce up to 12,000 megawatts, but that power remains stranded. The reason is clear: a broken transmission system.

The 2013 reform copied the telecom privatisation model, assuming similar success. Instead, it created a fragmented electricity value chain — generation, transmission, and distribution — run by disconnected entities. Critically, while generation and distribution were privatised, transmission was left under government control through the Transmission Company of Nigeria (TCN). That single decision has proven fatal.

TCN still operates colonial-era infrastructure incapable of wheeling current power needs, let alone future demand. Grid collapses, load rejection, and stranded generation capacity are the predictable consequences. The private-sector Gencos have invested and improved capacity; TCN has stagnated.

The impact has cascaded downstream. Distribution companies (Discos) are chronically under-supplied, unable to scale, and now saddled with an estimated ₦4 trillion debt burden. Consumers remain in darkness, businesses rely on generators, and economic growth is constrained.

Now, as the initial privatisation agreements expire, Nigeria has a rare chance to correct course. However, the recent proposal by Power Minister Adebayo Adelabu to split TCN into two government-controlled entities misses the point. Fragmenting failure does not produce reform — it multiplies inefficiency.

What Nigeria needs is not more bureaucracy but a modern, investment-driven grid. Transmission must be restructured, opened to private capital and expertise, and aligned with performance incentives. This is how successful power markets operate globally, from Europe to Asia.

Nigeria’s electricity challenge is not generation; it is transmission. Rather than doubling down on a state structure that has failed, the government should pursue bold market-driven reforms. The window to act is now. The cost of hesitation is another decade of darkness.

My objection to the policy matrix proposed by Minister Adelabu is anchored on the dictum that the government has no business in business. Until the government completely hands off the management of electricity — as it did with the telecommunications sector 25 years ago — chaos in the power sector will persist.

Minister Adelabu, justifying continued government ownership of TCN, announced plans to unbundle the Transmission Company of Nigeria into two entities: the Nigerian Independent System Operator (NISO) and the Transmission Service Provider (TSP). According to him, the objective is to promote operational clarity, transparency, and value creation through improved corporate governance.

However, to me — and to many Nigerians thinking beyond conventional boundaries — this appears to be a misguided move. The fundamental problem with TCN is bureaucracy and corruption, features often associated with government-controlled enterprises. Splitting TCN into two agencies still under state control cannot make it more efficient. It will only create duplication, confusion, and further inefficiency.

In orther words , fix the transmission bottleneck, do not multiply it.

Nigeria’s history is clear: government-run enterprises are typically riddled with inefficiency, redundancy, and corruption. That reality led to the creation of the Technical Committee on Privatisation and Commercialisation (TCPC), later transformed into the Bureau of Public Enterprises (BPE).

Yet here we are, re-entrenching government control where privatisation should be deepened.

A quick reminder: the four NNPC-owned refineries remain comatose despite years of turnaround maintenance — an unfortunate but useful lesson.

Given this precedent, the government should not renew partnership contracts with the 11 DisCos that have failed to meet expectations. They should be dissolved, and alongside TCN assets, transferred to existing GenCos (currently estimated at 23 operational firms with a combined capacity of 13,461MW) and other competent investors. These entities should then be assigned specific zones to manage, thus allowing a single operator to oversee generation, transmission, and distribution within each region.

Nigeria already has six geopolitical zones, a ready framework for restructuring the electricity market.

Some notable GenCos include Mainstream Energy (operator of Kainji, Jebba, and Zungeru hydros), Afam, Alaoji NIPP, Azura-Edo, Egbin, Geregu, Odukpani, Shiroro, and Trans-Amadi, among others. With this spread, it is feasible to allocate zones to capable operators who can seamlessly manage the full electricity value chain.

This is the norm in Europe, North America, and many parts of Asia where free-market systems thrive. In contrast, state-controlled utilities are common in monarchical or communist economies like parts of the Middle East and China. Nigeria has officially transitioned from a command-and-control economy to a market-driven one. So why the hesitation in liberalising transmission?

The argument that electricity is a security-sensitive asset and must remain state-controlled no longer holds water. Telecommunications — equally sensitive — was fully liberalised 25 years ago with no negative security consequences. On the contrary, it has flourished, creating indigenous champions like Globacom, owned by Chief Mike Adenuga, which is operating beyond Nigeria’s borders and helping the country earn foreign exchange.

Why should we accept fear-mongering in the power sector when liberalisation succeeded in telecoms?

Globally, ownership models vary. France’s EDF and Norway’s Statnett remain state-controlled; the U.K. and U.S. systems are largely private. China’s State Grid is state-owned, while Japan and South Korea maintain mixed systems. The rule is clear: no one-size-fits-all. Pragmatism must guide policy.

Nigeria followed global liberalization trends when it reformed banking in the 1990s, enabling indigenous entrepreneurs like Jim Ovia (Zenith) and the founders of GTBank- Fola Adeola and late Tayo Aderinokun to reshape the industry, now dominant across Africa and expanding globally. Tony Elumelu’s United Bank For Africa, UBA, already flourishing across Africa’s business landscape, is already present in Europe, the USA, and the Middle East, including Dubai in the United Arab Emirates , UAE and poised to open a branch jn Saudi Arabia. Electricity reform should follow a similar trajectory.

Instead, the government appears determined to retain control by splitting TCN — an action that contradicts global best practice and perpetuates inefficiency.

Furthermore, Nigeria is lagging in renewable energy despite enormous potential in solar, wind, and hydro. Countries like Ethiopia 100%, DRC 100%, and Eswatini 96% have leveraged PPPs to scale renewable adoption. Nigeria must do the same if it intends to unlock projected benefits — including IRENA’s forecast that renewables could provide 60% of Nigeria’s energy needs by 2050.

Rather than clinging to outdated control models, we should be developing mini-grids and decentralised systems to bypass an overstretched, outdated national grid that collapses under loads above 4-5GW, leaving 7-12GW stranded.

Overcoming energy poverty is essential to achieving Nigeria’s ambition of becoming a $1 trillion economy, like Indonesia, our peer in the 1960s. The current economy effectively operates only between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m., running at half capacity due to unreliable electricity. Opening the economy 24/7 would unlock productivity , double our GDP, currently at the number four (4) position in Africa, a little over $118 billion behind South Africa’s at $410.34, Egypt’s $337.34, and Algeria’s $268.89 accelerate industrialisation.

With adequate and stable electricity, Nigeria’s GDP can even be quadrupled when the existing factories and even more factories are set up and running in full capacity, thereby increasing productivity in the economy, such that our country can reclaim its prime position not only as Africa’s most populous nation but also the largest economy on the continent.

Underscoring the critical role electricity plays in economic development, China became “the world’s factory” after achieving surplus electricity through mega-projects like the Three Gorges Dam. India expanded access and reliability through mini-grids. Nigeria must study and apply these lessons.

To remain trapped in perpetual darkness after 12 years of partial deregulation is unacceptable. Nigeria must declare an emergency in the power sector, dismantle outdated structures, liberalize transmission, encourage private investment, and embrace renewable solutions. Only then can we unlock economic potential, expand manufacturing, and drive sustainable growth.”

Incidentally, this is not the first time in the past decade that the federal government has been strategically intervening in the power sector. Like what the president has just done last friday, former President  Muhamadu Buhari of blessed memory had also saddled his chief of staff, Mallam Abba Kyari, with the responsibility of working with Siemens of Germany to deliver a stable electricity supply in Nigeria.

The task was unaccomplished before he suddenly passed away, and the project is still ongoing.

The diference between the initiative by the last administration driven by Abba kyari to boost electricity supply is that while the effort was a one man show driven by then Chief of Staff to the president, in the current dispensation, under the watch of president Tinubu, a multi discipline approach, through setting up of a  committee comprising of ministries, departments and agencies led by Chief of staff Gbajabiamila to tackle the seemingly intractable challenge of electricity power poverty hobbling the progress and development of our country.

Given the compostion of the current handicapped electricity power  sector rescue team, it may not be too hasty to spread the optimism that help is on the way and encourage Nigerians to renew their hope that the long sought transition from darkness to light is on track.

Magnus Onyibe is an entrepreneur, public policy analyst, author, democracy advocate, development strategist, and alumnus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Massachusetts, USA. A Commonwealth Institute scholar and former commissioner in the Delta State Government, he sent this piece from Lagos.

Bio: Dr Jennifer Daniel researches entrepreneurship and innovation systems and how institutions design programmes that deliver measurable impact.

On a recent morning in Lagos I paused at a traffic light and found myself staring at a flawless square of lawn. A single hibiscus in bloom nodded in the breeze; a gardener in overalls swept leaves into the gutter. Nothing unusual except for the bristling necklace of barbed wire that ring-fenced this pocket of tranquillity. It was as if the shrubs required the same deterrence as a consulate. In Nigeria, even flowers wear body-armour.

That image turns out to be a fitting metaphor for a wider, less visible barrier: the country’s chronic shortage of social trust. Where people doubt that strangers or institutions will keep their word, they substitute steel for civility, paperwork for partnership and defensive crouches for creative leaps. Low trust has now become more than an inconvenience; it is a hidden tax on ingenuity.

Afrobarometer surveys show that nearly seven in ten Nigerians believe one “must be very careful” when dealing with others; only a quarter say they trust their fellow citizens “a lot” (Afrobarometer). Not surprisingly, that caution bleeds into commerce. Entrepreneurs spend outsized sums on notarised documents, personal guarantees and private security. Each extra step may feel prudent, yet collectively those steps slow the country’s stride.

Innovation, by definition, flourishes where ideas can be shared, credit fairly allotted and failure forgiven. Cross-country research finds that higher interpersonal trust correlates with more patents per capita and greater corporate R & D investment (ECGI). In low-trust settings, the equation reverses: collaboration looks risky, investors demand collateral, and inventors keep their best thoughts under lock and key. The result is not a dearth of talent which Nigeria teems with, but a bottleneck in diffusing that talent into everyday life.

Consider payments. Nigeria boasts some of Africa’s most celebrated fintechs, yet cash still dominates daily transactions. An industry report last month projected that notes and coins will remain the medium for almost half of consumer spending in 2025 despite rapid growth in bank transfers (Business Day). TechCabal’s analysis is blunt about why: trust in digital rails has not caught up with technical capability(TC Insights). People choose the physical handshake and, sometimes, the physical bribe because pixels feel easier to manipulate than crisp naira bills.

The cost is measurable. World Bank data suggest that if Nigeria matched Kenya’s mobile-money penetration, small businesses would capture billions of dollars in working-capital savings each year. That capital, instead of rolling over idle inventory, could fund prototypes or new hires. But when every buyer insists on cash and every supplier wants payment upfront, ideas stay in the garage.

The irony is that the very infrastructure meant to guarantee safety can worsen insecurity and inhibit growth. The higher the walls of a compound, the emptier the street outside; the thicker the contracts, the fewer the signatories. Trust and openness are not fluffy ideals. They are productivity tools.

So how to cut the wire literal and figurative? First, fix the plumbing of confidence. A universal, interoperable digital-identity system would shrink onboarding costs for banks and employers, replacing thumb-prints at the police station with a few taps on a phone. Rwanda’s IremboGov portal shows what happens when verification becomes frictionless: business-registration times plummeted from weeks to hours, and the start-up scene duly expanded.

Second, put transparency to work. Lagos State already publishes open-data sets on traffic and land use; extend that spirit to public procurement and research grants. When rules and results are searchable, mistrust has less room to fester. Investors, too, should disclose term-sheet templates rather than keeping founders guessing in the dark. Openness is a disinfectant and a lubricant.

Third, cultivate micro-zones of shared ownership. Community gardens, co-working fab-labs, even well-run housing co-operatives can serve as living laboratories where neighbours watch collective norms in action. Social scientists call this “trust priming”: once you have experienced reciprocity close to home, you become more willing to rely on it farther afield. Nigeria’s Co-creation HUB (CcHUB) Limited (RC 918335) began as exactly such a place. A decade later, it sits at the centre of a pan-African start-up network.

Finally, change the narrative. Too often discussions of Nigerian innovation read like cautionary tales: bandwidth too thin, power too erratic, regulators too capricious. All true, yet partial. A parallel story exists of entrepreneurs who thrived by betting on trust: Andela outsourcing global software jobs by certifying local talent, or the “Kitchen-as-a-Service” collective that shares refrigeration and delivery logistics among rival food vendors. The press, myself included, needs to spotlight these counterfactuals so that barbed-wire thinking does not become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

There is, of course, no guarantee that more trust will automatically yield a Nigerian Silicon Valley. But there is ample evidence that without it, the country will remain trapped in what one Lagos investor calls “the mausoleum of missed opportunities” (Financial Times). Every bolt on a gate, every stamp on triplicate forms, is a micro-second stolen from experimentation.

Back at that fenced lawn, the gardener paused to mop his brow. Beyond him lay a strip of cracked pavement strewn with plastic sachets. One side manicured, the other neglected and separated by something slimmer than a pinkie finger and sharper than common sense. You could almost imagine, for a fleeting moment, what the city would look like if the fence vanished and the hibiscus belonged to everyone.

Innovation is like that flower: hardy enough to grow in equatorial heat, but delicate enough to die in the shade of suspicion. Nigeria has never lacked the seeds. What it needs now is the courage to pull down the wire, trust that the garden can be tended in common and watch what blooms when minds, not metal, define the perimeter.

The Electoral Act 2022, which was amended by the National Assembly to become the Electoral Act 2026 in the midst of a significant controversy among those who believed the reforms were insufficiently comprehensive, has now been put to the test in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) of Abuja.
Owing to the relatively effective internet coverage of Abuja because it is urban,e-transmission of results from polling units to lReV was not reported to have failed.
Incidentally, the 2022 Electoral Act did not acknowledge electronic transmission, which was only documented in INEC’s electoral regulations. However, lawmakers in the tenth(10) assembly have incorporated electronic transmission into the amended Electoral Act 2026.

Mr. Mike Igini, an ex-INEC commissioner, had expressed concern that the lives of polling agents will be at risk if they are granted the authority to ascertain whether the internet is accessible in specific polling units. This is one of the reasons why he had opposed the use of form EC8A as a fallback option.

His thesis is that unscrupulous politicians may compel polling agents to unilaterally declare that internet service was poor to justify reliance on Form EC8A, which is susceptible to manipulation, as a result of the insignificant changes in the amended law. The law has now transitioned from the prohibition of the electronic transmission of election results to the amendment to accommodate the transmission electronically, with a caveat to fall back on Form EC8A. The fear was that if this occurred, the polling agents could end up at risk of harm at the hands of desperate politicians.

Incidentally, Mr.lgini, the highly principled INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC for Akwa Ibom state in 2019, whose tenacious prosecution of an election Returning Officer, Prof Peter Ogban, resulted in his conviction for the electoral offence of manipulating results, has many Nigerians advocating for the exclusive use of electronic transmission of results with the elimination of reliance on Form EC8A.
It is rather befuddling and perplexing that some Nigerians believe that relying solely on technology is the only solution to election rigging, even though it has been proven and is obvious that technology can be easily hacked.

During his appearance at an Arise TV interview on the day of the amendment, Mr. Igini spoke about how a previous state government blocked internet access, causing people in that jurisdiction to be unaware of election results, which leads us to a hypothetical scenario:
What if a politician decides to do the same in an unfavourable region or zone, making it impossible to send election results electronically to lReV.

It’s amazing that, even though technology can easily be used to jam the internet, making electronic transmission of results impossible, such that there is no need to hold the polling officer hostage, let alone kill the person, as feared by lgini, real-time e-transmission advocates still insist on its exclusive use for the 2027 elections.
To put things in context, Iran just cut down internet connectivity in that country to prevent protesting youths from engaging in social media interactions.
Based on the experience described above, manipulating elections is even more possible when they are solely driven by technology, especially if the vote is conducted manually rather than electronically. In light of the foregoing, I’d want to restate my former viewpoint in this column last week: “Let’s Think Out Of The Box And Not Engage In Herd Mentality”
The existential reality is that real-time election results transmission will not solve our electoral system’s rigging problem. Nigeria’s election integrity is hindered by vote-buying, a lack of sanctioning tribunals, and the judicial system’s negative role in determining public office holders, which usurps the role of the electorate after voting.
Furthermore, confidence will be reposed in the electoral system if the burden of proof to show that the results have not been tampered with by INEC officials, who are frequently involved in election manipulation, rests on them.

With harsh punishments hovering over INEC officials’ heads like the Sword of Damocles, the credibility of our election process may improve significantly. However, the underlying obstacles that democracy advocates should have addressed were generally neglected in favour of a frantic demand for the exclusive real-time electronic transfer of election results from polling stations to lReV.

Given the factors listed above, I would recommend that politically conscious Nigerians adopt a more expansive perspective by conducting a thorough search for solutions, rather than becoming narrow-minded and inadvertently becoming echo chambers for opposition politicians whose agendas may be self-serving, unaltruistic, and unclear.
Intriguingly, certain proponents of the exclusive reliance on electronic transmission of results from polling units to IReV justify their stance by asserting that they are anticipating the actions of political actors whom they accuse of corruption by falsifying figures in the Form EC8A during the 2023 general elections. They think that the misconduct can be resolved by eliminating human interaction in the results collation process through real-time electronic transmission of results.

In their opinion, anticipating the future involves second-guessing the alleged vote robbers and devising strategies to thwart their criminal schemes. Therefore, they are weeping, agonising, and hurling outbursts because they are unable to achieve their desired outcome, as President Bola Tinubu has promptly signed the amended act. However, the reality that they failed to consider is that the so-called election criminals are already devising strategies to manipulate the elections in 2027 through the use of technology.

Did INEC not guarantee Nigerians before the 2023 general elections that BVAS and lReV are the cure-all for elections? Was the promise fulfilled in that way? In view of the foregoing, why are those advocating for real-time e-transmission relying on INEC’s reported brag of 93% internet coverage in its polling locations during the previous administration?
What is it, if not pure naivety? In reality, one of the most significant impediments to the CBN’s cashless economy plan was the fear of the high risk and vulnerability of technology to cybercrime while maintaining the safety and security of their money.
The fear is real, as evidenced by the substantial losses of funds that have resulted from cyber fraud, which is the result of hacking and other technology-related offences, as attested to by risk managers in banks.c
Available records indicate that Nigeria has suffered substantial losses as a result of cyber fraud, as evidenced by data from the Nigeria Interbank Settlement Systems, and the Central Bank of Nigeria, among other sources. The quantum of funds lost to fraud has increased by 350% in the past five years, from N11.61 billion in 2020 to N52.26 billion in 2024.
Between January 2023 and April 2025, Nigeria may have suffered a loss of over N320 billion due to financial fraud, with 92% of these incidents being associated with digital transactions, mobile money, or fintech platforms.
In contrast to the ease with which banks can mitigate their risks through insurance packages in the event of a breach that results in the loss of customer funds through cyber fraud, what type of insurance can INEC or politicians implement to ensure against electoral fraud? This includes the possibility of cybercriminals hacking the lReV or jamming the system, which would prevent the transmission of results from the voting units to the lReV.

The question that arises from the aforementioned is: Is the fascination of Nigerians with the sole reliance on real-time e-transmission of election results and the exclusion of a fallback on Form EC8A due to the ignorance or brainwashing of the gullible electorate by opposition parties intent on torpedoing the forthcoming 2027 general elections?
It is truly remarkable how certain individuals can be so paralysed by the dread of a perceived crime that they fail to consider alternative methods of preventing the risk of election fraud. Is it not astonishing that rational individuals would place their complete trust in the electronic transmission of results, a system that has already been demonstrated to be highly vulnerable, given the knowledge we have about the vulnerability of technology to compromise by cyber fraudsters?

Prof. Mike Ikhariale, a constitutional law expert who studied at Harvard University, observed in a comment during the turbulent debates between lawmakers regarding the amendment of the 2022 electoral act in the 2026 electoral act, that the argument should not be emotionally charged or negatively speculative, which appears to have been the case. In his opinion, those who advocate for “real-time transmission” only serve as a reminder of the old Astro-Hungarian empire, which, fearing mortality, committed suicide.

Therefore, in his opinion, the opposition’s political actors will be committing suicide if they are to rely on unreliable technology as the sole platform for managing their votes.
He then pondered why those who are interested in exclusive real-time transmission are unable to observe this. I concur with his assessment. Fortunately, the Nigerian Senate, which is akin to the palm wine tapper in the village, and can observe the entire community from the top of the tree he climbs to extract the wine, thereby having a more comprehensive perspective than any other member of the community, weighed in with superior wisdom. Fortuitously, the Senate recognised what the members of the House of Representatives (HoR) did not figure out when they initially approved real-time e-transmission of election results and shared their knowledge with their junior partners.

Consequently, the prefix “real-time” has been eliminated from the amended 2022 electoral act after the upper and lower chambers members engaged in a dialogue to harmonize their positions. In addition, the most senior INEC polling officer, with the concurrence of representatives of the security agencies and political parties’ agents on site, will now be responsible for determining whether or not there is an internet connection for electronic transmission. There is a penalty for false declaration.
In reality, the Nigerian electoral process is still in the developmental phase and will continue to improve, irrespective of the political party in power. Nigeria has undergone numerous electioneering processes throughout history, as Bolade Agbola, another acquaintance, noted. The evolution encompasses the following:

(1) The first general elections that were conducted in 1966, which marked the beginning of an era of ballot box theft and stuffing with false ballot papers.
(2) The era of the collation centres (FEDECO state headquarters) where falsification of results could occur which is a consequence of the use of ward collating centers.
(3) In 2007, the use of forensic reports to overturn results and the thumb printing of ballot papers at polling centers occurred which happened in Osun and Ekiti states are also processs that lend themselves to electoral fraud.
Given the poor record of past experiences highlighted above, there is no doubt that the 2023 electoral process can be classified as one of the finest in our history, given the referenced electioneering experiences before 2023.

The aforementioned assertion is further supported by the fact that IReV operated flawlessly during the gubernatorial, National Assembly, and State Assembly elections, despite its failure to perform during the presidential election.
The IReV portal eventually received the presidential election results, despite the initial transmission errors.
Democracy does not entail the acquisition of a perfect majority of ballots on a global scale. The difference between the victor and the loser may be as small as a single vote. Understandably, the loss of an election is a traumatic experience for candidates; however, it is important to acknowledge the unique characteristics of our nation, which is characterised by inadequate internet and electricity infrastructure.

The election that resulted in the presidency of George W. Bush in the United States was the subject of controversy when the state of Florida implemented manual vote tallying. The results of the 2020 election, in which the immediate past president Joe Biden defeated the then incumbent president Donald Trump, were disputed to the point that Trump’s supporters invaded Capitol Hill, the US seat of legislative power, with the intention of abducting and hanging the then vice president Mike Pence and then speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi who the aggrieved Republican voters unsuccessfully attempted to dissuade from endorsing the result they were disputing.
In the words of Jordan Peterson, a Canadian psychologist and professor who is renowned for his provocative perspectives on the significance of truth and intellectual responsibility: “Truth is a commitment. Truth is a duty. The intellectual who refuses to defend it has surrendered the very purpose of learning”
In Nigeria, we acquire knowledge daily, and this is especially true of our electoral system, which has undergone significant changes since the era of ballot box stuffing and theft.

Before now, the electioneering process has been conducted entirely manually up to about 2011/2015 when BVAS and lReV were introduced until now, when a hybrid of technological systems and manual operations is driving the system.
Perhaps electronic voting, diaspora voting, and voting by mail systems will have been incorporated into the electoral laws of our land through another amendment by the 2031 election cycle, when the internet and electricity infrastructure in our country are anticipated to have become more robust and reliable. By that time the malady of low voter turnout, which has been the subject of much lamentation and agony among commentators on our electoral system, may be alleviated by the inclusion of the aforementioned voting options when these additional windows are opened.

I find it disappointing, disheartening, and even abhorrent that INEC, as well as political parties and even civil society organisations, have not conducted any research that focuses on how more electors can fulfil their civic responsibilities.
Rather the emphasis has been on the reasons why the election process will be exclusively influenced by technology, despite its established disadvantages.
The individuals who advocate for a complete reliance on technology are inclined to believe that the sole issues plaguing our electoral system are vote manipulation and the mutilation of result sheets by unscrupulous politicians. That is a flawed assumption.
The truth is that the crime of vote buying which has reached a near pandemic level is also a major culprit.
Unbeknownst to many Nigerians, since they did not clamor for it, electronic voting, diaspora, and voting by mail, which have not yet become integral components of the electoral system, could be the definitive solution to the challenge of lack of trust in the system. The inclusion of these options could restore the integrity of our elections, as the electorate would have the option to fall back on as their alternative ways of voting, and begin to believe that their vote will be taken into account.

My argument is that more votes may be recorded if those who are reluctant to vote because of violence at polling stations can vote from the comfort of their own homes when it is included in the electoral act if amended. Similarly, a significant number of Nigerians in the diaspora could vote if it were also included in the electoral act much the same way that voting by mail can boost voter turnout if it is permitted. That is because voters who registered at home but are unable to vote due to duty calls or local or foreign travels outside of the location where they registered could also exercise their options via voting by mail.

In my opinion, that is the surest way to increase the number of Nigerians willing to vote and actually voting, rather than relying solely on real-time e-transmission of election results, which all stakeholders appeared to be fixated on without considering the other options outlined above.
Meanwhile, the polls held over the weekend in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, as well as by-elections in Kano and Rivers states, serve as the first test of the Electoral Act 2026’s performance.

Unfortunately, the most vocal opposition party, the African Democratic Congress, ADC, failed to live up to its promise that it would unseat the incumbent All Progressives Congress, APC, in 2027 and take the presidency of Aso Rock Villa.
With the incumbent APC winning five (5) of the councils and the PDP securing one (1) of the six (6) chairperson seats up for grabs in Abuja, it appears that the PDP has outperformed the ADC, which is starting to look like a paper tiger.
Analysts were focusing on the Abuja council and the Kano and Rivers by-elections as a referendum on President Bola Tinubu’s administration, in what appears to be the equivalent of midterm elections in the United States. These elections are anticipated to be a referendum on the love or hate of President Trump and his revolutionary Make America Great Again (MAGA) ideology.
It is evident that the predictions of doom and dread regarding the ruling APC were wrong, as the ruling party’s candidates emerged victorious in the FCT, Abuja, Kano, and Rivers states.

As such, it is clear that the APC continues to be the dominant party. The opposition is still in the process of catching up, as it has included 31 of the 36 governors in its platform. The PDP, which has the second-highest number of state governors and legislators, is the only opposition party to have won an election in the contest in Abuja, last week. The ruling party in the center, APC won the largest number of seats in the elections in Abuja, Kano, and Rivers states.
Even though the Labour Party (LP) and the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) each have one state in the eastern region of the country, they were unable to win any of the contests in Abuja. How could the ADC and the New Nigerian People Party (NNPP), which have no state governors in their coalition, make any significant impact? What implications does this have for the 2027 general elections?
In my opinion, governors are significant in elections, and it is a counter narrative to the assertion made by the opposition parties, particularly the ADC, that governors and legislators can defect to the ruling APC, and on election day, the electorate will vote for the ADC, which by all indications at the moment appears to be unprepared and not on the ground, but a mere paper tiger or social media party. This is evident in the mischievous hashtags that some of their traducers have recently used.

Magnus Onyibe, an entrepreneur, public policy analyst, author, democracy advocate, development strategist, an alumnus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Massachusetts, USA, a Commonwealth Institute scholar, and a former commissioner in the Delta State government, sent this piece from Lagos.

The National Agency For Food and Drugs Admistration Commission, NAFDAC’s decision to ban the production and sale of alcohol in sachets and small bottles (below 200 ml) is not an act of regulatory overreach. It is a long-overdue public-health intervention aimed at protecting Nigeria’s most vulnerable population—our children and young adults. The ban, effective January 2026, is rooted in clear evidence that these small, highly concentrated alcohol sachets fuel addiction, abuse, and a cascade of social problems.

Yet, despite repeated concessions and extensions granted by regulators, manufacturers and sellers continue to resist compliance. Their objections are framed around job losses and economic impact, but beneath the rhetoric lies a troubling reality: profit is being placed above public safety.

Rather than respect a regulation enacted squarely in the public interest, some industry players have resorted to aggressive lobbying, arguing that sachet alcohol improves affordability and moderates consumption. They now advocate alternative measures—such as stricter age enforcement and better labelling—in place of an outright ban. These arguments, however, ring hollow in a country where regulatory enforcement is already overstretched and routinely undermined.

Let us be clear: the resistance to this ban is not about balance or pragmatism; it is about money. Those opposing the policy are effectively willing to trade the health and future of Nigerian children for continued commercial gain. This position reflects a disturbing erosion of moral and ethical responsibility among certain entrepreneurs who view vulnerable youths as a market rather than lives worth protecting.

The debate over sachet alcohol mirrors a broader dysfunction in our society—the persistent clash between economic interests and public-health imperatives. It is the same conflict that has allowed counterfeit drugs to flourish and substance abuse to spiral unchecked. When profit repeatedly trumps protection, society pays the price.

Proponents of sachet alcohol have floated several so-called alternatives: stricter enforcement of age restrictions, public awareness campaigns, promotion of non-alcoholic beverages, and industry adaptation through safer packaging. While these ideas sound reasonable on paper, they collapse under Nigeria’s current realities.

Stricter enforcement, in particular, is the weakest link. Regulatory agencies such as NAFDAC and law-enforcement bodies lack the manpower, resources, and reach to police alcohol sales effectively across a rapidly growing and urbanising population. Even the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) is overwhelmed by the scale of drug abuse ravaging Nigerian youth.

This crisis is not unique to Nigeria. In the United States, illicit drug epidemics have grown so severe that President Donald Trump has pursued aggressive international measures to curb the inflow of fentanyl, pressuring neighbouring countries and targeting alleged foreign collaborators using sweeping tariffs against its North American neigbors -Canada and Mexico and even Venezuelan in the Carribean where it deployed military force to capture the president Nicholas Maduro and his wife currently on trial in the US for alleged narcotics trafficking offense. If advanced nations struggle to contain substance abuse, expecting Nigeria to succeed through “stricter enforcement” alone is unrealistic.

As the NDLEA tightens its grip on illicit drugs such as tramadol, sachet alcohol has increasingly become the next low-hanging fruit for teenagers bent on self-destruction. Allowing its continued production and distribution only widens the gateway to addiction—one cheaply packaged, highly potent sachet at a time.

This is why the NAFDAC ban must stand. Not as a symbolic gesture, but as a firm statement that Nigeria will no longer sacrifice its children on the altar of profit. Economic arguments cannot outweigh the long-term social, health, and moral costs of inaction. When the choice is between protecting lives and preserving margins, the answer should not be complicated.

As may be recalled, “mkpurumiri”—a street name for a brand of illicit drugs—became popular among youths, particularly in the eastern part of Nigeria. Its widespread use fuelled criminality and, at one point, brought the economy of that region to its knees. A similar situation applies in the northern flank of our country where religious insurgency is wreaking havoc on the populace, just as in the south west street urchins menace also known as ‘Area Boy’ syndrome is assuming alarming if not epidemic proportions. It is therefore a no-brainer to link drug and alcohol abuse directly to crime.

It is also on record that the police, who are responsible for enforcing laws that prevent children from accessing alcohol, are already overstretched and struggling to cope with the surge in crime across society. This reality informed President Bola Tinubu’s recent directive to the Inspector-General of Police, IGP Kayode Egbetokun, to withdraw police officers from VIP duties in order to strengthen frontline crime-fighting capacity, as well as to embark on massive recruitment to boost law enforcement.

That presidential directive underscores the fact that a police force already unable to rein in common criminals is being further stretched by the growing challenge of domestic terrorism, which necessitated the President’s marching orders to recruit more personnel.

In light of these realities, adding the enforcement of a ban on alcohol consumption by children to the responsibilities of an already fatigued police force would amount to an avoidable burden.

The central case against sachet alcohol manufacturing and distribution is simple: it enables easy access and concealment by children, made possible through the small size and discreet packaging of these products. To be fair, retailing goods in smaller packages is a long-established strategy for making products affordable and accessible to consumers with low purchasing power. Experience shows that this marketing approach is driven largely by economic realities.

In Nigeria, the pioneer of sachet-sized retailing was drinking water—popularly known as “pure water”—which is widely sold and consumed by the masses. When first introduced, it sold for as little as ₦5 per sachet and was especially popular among people who earn daily wages and are constantly on the move, as it was both affordable and effective at quenching thirst. Over the years, selling soap, detergents, and similar household items in small sachets has also become a common practice in the marketing of consumer goods.

In the current circumstances of widespread poverty—largely the initial fallout of sweeping economic reforms being implemented by President Bola Tinubu’s administration—micro-retailing has become an inevitable marketing and distribution strategy for moving goods to the lower rungs of the economic ladder. While local and international stakeholders have begun to acknowledge early positive signs of these reforms, the wider population has yet to feel the benefits, particularly through a significant drop in consumer prices.

As a result of these realities, products such as tea, sugar,milk, and other related consumables, which were once available only in large, medium, or standard small sizes, have had to be repackaged into miniature sachets to make them affordable to a broader segment of society.

Consider the low-income tea vendors (mai shayi) operating around motor parks and other public spaces. In the past, milk and sugar—sold only in large packages—were largely accessible to the middle and upper classes. Today, however, harsh economic conditions have made sachet packaging essential. By breaking these products into smaller units, more people can afford them, allowing a greater number of Nigerians to enjoy tea with milk at makeshift roadside stalls located where the working poor live and earn their livelihoods—something that was largely impossible in the past when these commodities were sold only in bulk

Some consumer-goods manufacturers have successfully boosted sales by downsizing their products to suit declining purchasing power. A notable example is the 3-in-One coffee mix, which combines coffee, sugar, and milk in a single ready-to-drink sachet. This model, driven by inflation and reduced consumer income, proved highly effective for fast-moving consumer goods such as water, detergents, milk, and even rice.

However, the decision by alcohol manufacturers to replicate this strategy ignores a critical distinction. Unlike food and non-alcoholic beverages, alcohol is legally prohibited for children. By packaging alcohol in small sachets, manufacturers have created cheap, easily concealed products that make children the most vulnerable consumers. This reality lies at the heart of the case against sachet alcohol.
Given that when becomes a deviant, errant or wayward, the mother often gets blamed, one is surprised that women did not join NAFDAC in wagging the battle against the very powerful alcohol manufacturers that deployed huge resources resisting the ban on alcohol sold in sachets in order to continue expose the lives of young ones to risk of alcoholism.
Not even the ubiquitous civil society organizations that are often quick to champion popular causes were there to speak up for our children who apparently are voiceless and could not lobby the NGOs to rise in their defense.

Clearly, the practice of selling alcohol in sachets violate both the spirit and letter of a United Nations agreement signed by Nigeria in 2010, which restricts children’s access to alcohol. Sachet packaging enables minors to purchase alcohol cheaply, hide it in their pockets, and even take it into classrooms. In effect, this amounts to sacrificing our children for profit.

This debate underscores the difficult balance between economic realities and child protection. While downsizing products is a legitimate response to poverty and inflation, it becomes unacceptable when it exposes minors to harm. Children are the future, and allowing commercial interests to endanger their well-being is morally indefensible.

The ban on sachet alcohol should therefore be seen not as an attack on business, but as a call for innovation. Manufacturers can explore safer packaging, premium products, or non-alcoholic alternatives. In fact, there is a growing market for low- or zero-alcohol beverages, particularly in northern Nigeria, where alcohol consumption is religiously prohibited.

Non-alcoholic beer already exists and could attract consumers who abstain for religious, health, or personal reasons. Instead of exaggerating job-loss fears and resisting regulation, alcohol producers should rethink their business models.

In the lslamic world, there is Halal food business thriving.
And a different type of meat has been created out of vegetables to suit the taste bud of vegetarians.
Many businesses thrive by aligning with ethical values and community needs. Some hotels, even in non-Islamic countries, choose not to sell alcohol and remain profitable. Alcohol manufacturers in Nigeria can do the same by balancing profitability with social responsibility—without placing children at risk.

A brief review of global business practices shows that diversification is neither utopian nor impractical. Alcohol manufacturers have viable alternatives if they choose to explore them. These include premiumisation—focusing on high-end, low-volume products aimed strictly at adults—diversification into non-alcoholic beverages, responsible marketing, and direct community investment that supports children and families.

Many global brands have already embraced this shift. Non-alcoholic drinks such as kombucha and flavoured seltzers are gaining wide acceptance, while Guinness now produces a non-alcoholic variant of its flagship product. The specific direction firms take should be guided by market research, but what cannot be justified is the continued endangerment of children in the name of profit.

Unfortunately, some alcohol entrepreneurs remain fixated on quick returns rather than long-term social responsibility. Their resistance to reform suggests a troubling indifference to the welfare of children—who may well include their own. This mindset reflects a broader moral crisis in a society where the pursuit of money increasingly trumps basic human values.

Even in the face of research demonstrating the harmful effects of sachet alcohol on minors, manufacturers continue to lobby aggressively for its retention. In my view, this places them in the same moral category as purveyors of hard drugs—actors who profit from the slow destruction of young lives, albeit under the guise of legality.

Citing job creation and contributions to GDP does not absolve practices that make alcohol cheap, accessible, and easily concealable for children. Economic activity that undermines the future of a nation’s youth is neither progressive nor defensible.

If alcohol manufacturers are serious about sustainability, the path forward lies in innovation, diversification, and ethical restraint—not in sacrificing children for profit.
So, the ban on sachet alcohol should stand and the executive and legislative branches of government should stop giving oxygen to the sachet alcohol manufacturers deploying huge resources in fighting its ban by not paying attention to their clamour to lift the ban but only if they seek encouragement to innovate or diversify.
In fact in the interest of securing the future of our children the judicial branch should be prepared to apply the full force of the law against sachet alcohol manufacturers and distributors who breach the new NAFDAC law banning it, when they are sued by NAFDAC or class actions are taken by aggrieved or injured parents.
I commend the likes of Mrs Oluwatosin Adeniyi, the wife of my good friend , former presidential spokesman, Thisday newspaper editorial board chairman and prolific author/columnist, Segun Adeniyi.
Her wave making school in Abuja-Not Forgoten Initiative, (NFI) started as a humanitarian gesture by a compassionate woman to rescue children who were apparently without parental care and therefore susceptable to becoming part of the growing number of our children that the society only promises a bleak future , without the intervention of good cause platforms such as the NFl rescuing indigent kids from being destitutes and saving them from being easy recruits into criminal activities by giving them basic education.
Society will be better served if the manufacturers of alcohol in sachets could have deployed or channeled the enormous resources they expended on resisting sachet alcohol ban on good causes such as the NFl which is giving children in the lowest rung of the ladder in our society a chance to survive and contribute to nation building.

Magnus Onyibe, an entrepreneur, public policy analyst, author, democracy advocate, development strategist, an alumnus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Massachusetts, USA, a Commonwealth Institute scholar, and a former commissioner in the Delta State government, sent this piece from Abuja.

Eight years ago, on April 12, 2017, my family and I were plunged into a darkness for which no words ever truly suffice. It was a grief born of medical negligence—the avoidable death of our 18-year-old daughter, Kikaose Ebiye-Onyibe—following a tragically mismanaged appendicitis surgery at Gold Cross Hospital, now known as Lagoon Hospital, on Bourdillon Road, Ikoyi, Lagos.

It is a sorrow I recognize all too well, and one I imagine now envelops Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and her family following the heartbreaking loss of their 21-month-old son, Nkanu, who passed away on January 7, 2026, at Euracare, a specialist hospital on Victoria Island, Lagos. Though the names, places, and years differ, the pain is achingly familiar—sudden, brutal, and life-altering.

When the acclaimed writer shared news of her son’s passing, her words resonated deeply with me. They echoed a nightmare my family has lived with since 2017—a wound that time has not healed, only taught us how to endure. Grief, after all, does not expire; it merely changes form.

In the passages reproduced below, Chimamanda recounts her harrowing experience at Euracare—an account now reverberating across both traditional and digital media. Her story of loss will be followed by my own: the story of a father who lost his daughter at 18 under similarly preventable circumstances. That account was first published on December 19 in 2017 in this column and other traditional and online platforms, again on Christmas Day of the same year in the Daily Trust newspaper.

These are not merely personal stories of sorrow. They are testaments to lives cut short and to families forever altered. Above all, they are reminders of the profound human cost of medical failure—and of the silence that too often follows it.
Here is how Chimamanda put it:

“My son would be alive today if not for an incident at Euracare Hospital on January 6th”
 
She lamented. Her expression of grief continued.
 
“We were in Lagos for Christmas. Nkanu had what we first thought was just a cold, but it soon turned into a very serious infection, and he was admitted to Atlantis Hospital. He was to travel to the US the next day, January 7th, accompanied by Travelling Doctors. A team at Johns Hopkins was waiting to receive him in Baltimore. The Hopkins team had asked for a lumbar puncture test and an MRI. The Nigerian team had also decided to put in a ‘central line’ (used to administer IV medications) in preparation for Nkanu’s flight. Atlantis Hospital referred us to Euracare Hospital, which was said to be the best place to have the procedures done”…
 
Continuing, she wrote.
 
“The morning of the 6th, we left Atlantis hospital for Euracare, Nkanu carried in his father’s arms. We were told he would need to be sedated to prevent him from moving during the MRI and the ‘central line’ procedure. I was waiting just outside the theater. I saw people, including Dr M, rushing into the theater and immediately knew something had happened.
 
A short time later, Dr M came out and told me Nkanu had been given too much propofol by the anesthesiologist, had become unresponsive, and was quickly resuscitated. But suddenly Nkanu was on a ventilator, he was intubated and placed in the ICU. The next thing I heard was that he had seizures. Cardiac arrest. All these had never happened before. Some hours later, Nkanu was gone”.

Surprisingly, she wrote.
 
“It turns out that Nkanu was NEVER monitored after being given too much propofol. The anesthesiologist had just casually carried Nkanu on his shoulder to the theater, so nobody knew when exactly Nkanu became unresponsive.”
 
With a grieving heart, she asked.
 
“How can you sedate a sick child and neglect to monitor him? Later, after the ‘central line’ procedure, the anesthesiologist casually switched off Nkanu’s oxygen and again decided to carry him on his shoulder to the ICU! The anesthesiologist was CRIMINALLY negligent. He was fatally casual and careless with the precious life of a child. No proper procedure was followed.”
 
Furthermore, she wondered aloud.
 
“We brought in a child who was unwell but stable and scheduled to travel the next day. We came in to conduct basic procedures. And suddenly, our beautiful little boy was gone forever. It is like living your worst nightmare. I will never survive the loss of my child.
 
We have now heard about two previous cases of this same anesthesiologist overdosing children. Why did Euracare allow him to keep working? This must never happen to another child.”

Although the tragic deaths of Kikaose in 2017 and Nkanu in 2026 occurred in different Lagos hospitals, the anguish of Nkanu’s loss—still painfully fresh—mirrors what my family endured eight years ago.

This latest tragedy underscores a disturbing reality: Nigeria’s healthcare system remains in a deplorable state. Little, if any, progress appears to have been made between 2017, when I lost my daughter, and 2026, when Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie suffered the devastating loss of her son. These recurring, avoidable deaths point to systemic failure rather than isolated errors.

As Chimamanda and her family now demand accountability from negligent doctors and medical institutions—articulated in her statement and reinforced by Dr. Anthea Esege Nwandu, a physician and family member of Chamamanda, during an appearance on Arise News’ program-Perspectives, hosted by Ruth Osime, last Saturday—my family and I took a similar stand in 2017, determined that others would not suffer the same fate.

Consequently, I engaged in sustained advocacy and public enlightenment through a series of articles published in this column and across other traditional and digital media platforms.

Some of my media interventions since 2017, using Kikaose’s painful loss as a catalyst to expose the dire state of medical services in Nigeria, include.

“Goodnight At Noon Time: Lamenting The Death Of A Loved One” was published May 24, 2017.
 
“Last Letter To God: The Diary Of A Youth” was published July 4, 2017.
 
“Bereavement Hallucinations And The Collateral Beauty In Kikaose’s Passage” published Nov 12, 2017.
 
“No Happy Xmas…” was published on December 19th and on Christmas Day 2017.
 
“Nigerian Healthcare Situation: How Lack Of A Ventilator Killed My Daughter”, published in April 2018,

Interested readers may search online for the articles referenced above and my other media interventions on the matter.

Following our advocacy—whether by design or coincidence—the Lagos State Government under Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu established the Health Facility Monitoring and Accreditation Agency (HEFAMAA) to strengthen oversight of medical facilities, as we had long advocated.

Notably, it is this same agency that Governor Sanwo-Olu has now directed to investigate the tragic, untimely, and clearly avoidable death of baby Nkanu, reportedly due to medical negligence.

In solidarity with Chimamanda Adichie and her family, and to highlight the sobering reality that little has changed in Nigeria’s healthcare system eight years after Kikaose’s death, I am republishing an article I wrote in 2017. It calls for stricter monitoring of medical institutions and appropriate sanctions for negligent practitioners and facilities.
The negligence in Kikaose’s case in Goldcross hospital 8 years ago is

(1) after the surgery was completed she was wheeled out of the theatre and lodged in a room under the care of her mum and l without a doctor or nursing staff in the room to monitor her condition. Ordinarily, there should have been such support but it was absent. Also not available was the equipment or gadget that should have done the monitoring at such a critical time. Comparatively, when l had food poisoning a couple of years ago and l received treatment at First Cardiologist Hospital also in Ikoyi. Apart from a doctor and nurse attached to me and within a whispering call, I had all sorts of gadgets affixed to my body monitoring everything going on inside of me. Every half an hour either the nurse or in company of the doctor was by my bedside to check on me. On the occasion that they noticed that my BP was going up very quickly, they had insulin injections ready to be administered. When l rejected their attempt to administer it they both tried very hard to persuade me after which l accepted.

(2) How could a surgery during which the patient lost a lot of blood not have a ventilator available on stand-by to serve as backup if the patient lost control of her breathing as it happened with Kikaose? It was not until Kikaose told her mum that she could not see any more and a nurse was invited and it was discovered that she was losing her pulse after which she was rushed into an ICU and an ambulance was invited from Lagoon Hospital Apapa to ikoyi by 10 am- a typical hour in Lagos where the traffic jam can be horrible, that she received attention and at which time it was rather late (3) The situation was further complicated by the fact that the hospital was short of oxygen and the nurses and other personnel were seen running around in search of oxygen in cylinders as we watched our beloved Kikaose gasping for breathe with an oxygen mask on her face before she took her last breathe after which the medics started trying to resuscitate her to no avail. My regret to date is to have been naive enough to entrust the precious life of our beloved Kikaose into the hands of Nigerian doctors and the hospital system.
If we had been steadfast in our first instinct to put Kikaose on the next flight back to Birmingham, England perhaps she would be alive today.

But we failed her by reposing confidence in the health services system where it is generally believed that when one is ill, not having an alternative source of medical care more often than not, it is like one is faced with a death sentence. My wife and l were not allowed into the surgery theater so we are not aware of what really transpired.
One of the nurses in the emergency room informed us that our daughter is brave because in the midst of the whole confusion in the ICU, as the medical doctors were discussing whether to open her up again, she had the courage of her mind to inquire why they were contemplating re-opening her. She did not live to discuss that proposition with us because she did not make it out of the ICU alive. Our prayers are that one day, a high-minded medic in the theater in the course of carrying out the procedure on Kikaose, would reveal details of what went wrong on that fateful day.

If after Kikaose passed away, the medical system witnessed significant improvement following our campaign for improvements one would take solace that she did not die in vain. But to our chagrin, that has so far not been the case. Hopefully, with Chimamanda and family involved in the advocacy to hold hospitals and medical services providers responsible, perhaps the much sort positive change may manifest.

The choice of the article below —No Happy Xmas…—is deliberate. Published during Christmas 2017, shortly after our own devastating loss, it captured our grief during a season meant for joy. Its republication now is rendered even more poignant by the tragic loss of Nkanu in early January, just after the Christmas and New Year celebrations.

Below is that article, first published in this column eight years ago and later widely republished, titled “No Happy Xmas Without…”.

“Yuletide, which is widely celebrated as a period of joy and holidays for mankind, is especially remarkable in the Christian world. This is because December 25 is marked as the date of birth of Jesus Christ, the son of the Most High God, who we Christians believe is the saviour of the world.
 
It has been argued in some quarters, like in the book, Myth And Mystery: An Introduction to the Pagan Religions of the Biblical World by Jack Finnegan, that Christmas was started by a pagan Roman king named Nimrod – the infamous builder of the Tower of Babel to challenge God’s authority, but his tongue and that of his co-travellers got twisted.
 
With no official records of December 25th being the birthday of Jesus Christ, there is a belief in some quarters that early Christians had adopted and institutionalised the pagan festival celebrating the Roman Sun god – Deus Sol Invictus as the festival of the birth of the son of God – Jesus Christ. And it has remained sacrosanct.
 
Over the years, the former view has prevailed over the latter and thus has become more mainstream despite the argument in recent times by the likes of Louis Farrakhan, the leader of the Nation of Islam. He contends that the celebration of December 25, as the birthday of Jesus Christ, has no historical or empirical evidence to support the belief entrenched by the orthodox churches, which, by omission or commission, had blended the birth of Christ with a pagan ceremony.
 
Realistically, how can the birthday of Jesus Christ, the son of the most high God who is holy, be the occasion when people drink more alcohol and engage in devil-inspired revelry and debauchery more than any other day?
 
The fiery American social critic and human rights activist even parodies the foolishness of Christians, whom he believes are being exploited annually as they spend their hard-earned money buying Christmas trees and lights to decorate their homes, and in the process, enriching the merchants who sell those trees and lights that sometimes cause fire incidents in homes with disastrous consequences.
 
Incidentally, both Christians and people of other faiths enjoy the Christmas holidays and engage in fantastic rituals such as Santa Claus passing gifts through the chimney to kids, which mimic ancient Roman and Norse pagan rites, according to the World Book encyclopedia.
 
Ironically, the biggest exporters of Christmas merchandise are the Chinese and the Indians, who are mainly Buddhists and Hindus, who mass-produce the items cheaply in the two fastest-growing economies of the world.
 
According to Farrakhan’s analogy, it is these Chinese and Indian merchants who are non-Christians that benefit more than adherents of the faith from Xmas festivities because while Christians squander their hard-earned money at Christmas, the merchants earn income while producing and selling the memorabilia that commemorate watch night, Christmas Day, and Boxing Day ceremonies.
 
In Nigeria, some leaders of new generation Pentecostal churches like Daniel Olukoya, the general overseer of Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries (MFM), discourage the flock that he leads from engaging in the celebration of Christmas in order not to inadvertently endorse paganism, which he believes those who celebrate Christmas may passively be engaging in.
 
To help members bridle their mouths and restrain themselves from joining in Christmas festivities, as it were, MFM encourages converts to embark on a more Godly and spirit-edifying exercise, which is a mandatory fasting and abstinence period. Adherents are advised to break their fast on January 1, after praying into the new year.
 
In life, two dates are critically important and uncontrollable by man: the day we are born and the day that we die, because birth and death are inevitable. Unlike Christmas, which is not mentioned anywhere in the Bible, the holy book records with empirical evidence that Jesus Christ died in April, which is why Easter is often celebrated in that month.
 
And coincidentally, my 18-year-old daughter, Kikaose Ebiye-Onyibe, who was on track to graduate in law from the University of Birmingham next year, suddenly passed away on April 12, the holiest month in Christendom, as a result of a failed surgery procedure to remove her ruptured appendix in Gold Cross Hospital on Bourdillon Road, Ikoyi, Lagos.
 
Remarkably, the Bible tells us that Jesus Christ, who left indelible footprints on earth in a relatively short period, went back to heaven at a comparatively young age of about 35.
 
Given that the Bible recorded that man was ordained by God to live up to the age of three scores and 10 (70 years) and Jesus, the son of God, died at an unripe age, we are consoled that although Kikaose passed away at 18, she was a disciple of Christ. And her friends and colleagues at school have in their tributes, attested to that fact in their eulogies during the service of songs for her and thereafter.
 
They noted that during her lifetime, Kikaose “recruited an army for God” through her active evangelism and leadership role in campus church fellowship, as well as the house fellowship that she organised and led whenever she was home on holidays.
 
Kikaose’s passage has remained an irony and puzzle because she seemed to have returned from England (where President Muhammadu Buhari went to seek healing for a debilitating ailment) to Nigeria to pass away after bidding her siblings, mother, and me goodbye.
 
It’s baffling because it remains medically unexplainable how she was able to withstand the pain from an appendix that ruptured for about two weeks in England before she came home to Nigeria for the treatment of Urinary Tract Infection (UTI), which was the misdiagnosed ailment by British medical authorities that was discovered only after she had embarked on her trip to Nigeria.
 
 
Can you imagine how bizarre it was for us when a scan recommended by our family doctor revealed that Kikaose’s appendix had been ruptured and she needed immediate surgery to remove it?
 
Like a lamb led to the slaughter, Kikaose, who despite the excruciating pain in her lower abdomen, had been preaching to her younger sister since arriving home about heaven and rapture, dutifully surrendered herself to the doctors for the surgery after she assured her mum and sister that should she not make it out of the theatre alive, she was assured she would be with Jesus Christ, whom she had served diligently.
 
Unbeknownst to us, the Gold Cross hospital, smack in the heart of Ikoyi, with all the glitter and glitz whose doctors we entrusted with the duty of saving Kikaose’s precious little life, would fail us woefully because they had no life-saving equipment, such as a ventilator that could have sustained her life. It should boggle the mind that before Gold Cross admitted Kikaose for the surgery procedure, they insisted that I deposit half a million naira.
 
A payment which I promptly made at that midnight hour through the swiping of my debit card.
 
But, disappointingly, Gold Cross Hospital had no equipment commensurate with its high charges, which is a sad commentary on the state of affairs in the medical sector in Nigeria.
 
The dearth of equipment and personnel is equally dire in the so-called centres of medical excellence in Nigeria, like Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), and even worse still, the presidential clinic in Aso Rock Villa, which has become the shame of the nation as the first family exposed the abysmal state of lack of requisite medical facilities and supplies.
 
By the time the ambulance that the hospital called to convey Kikaose to the better-equipped and staffed Lagoon Hospital, Apapa, which has a ventilating machine, arrived about 10 hours after surgery, which commenced at about midnight and ended at 2 am, she had passed away.
 
At Christmas, Kikaose usually led the effort to decorate our home with a Christmas tree and lights, but now that she is no more, in her honour and in solidarity with the new revelation that Christmas may be a pagan festival, this year and going forward, there will no longer be Christmas trees or lights in our home.
 
So, for me, there is no Christmas without Kikaose and without positive change and succour for long-suffering Nigerians. I recognise that I’m not the only one who lost a child this year.
 
So, my decision to shun Xmas is also in solidarity with the families of many Nigerians killed or displaced by Boko Haram terrorists in northeast Nigeria and a horde of victims of Fulani herdsmen/farmers clashes across the country.
 
Although they may remain unsung, like my family and I, they are grieving and loathing Christmas without their loved ones. Apart from us, the former Board of Trustees (BOT) Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief Tony Anenih, recently lost his second son, Eugene, to the cold hands of death. So also did All Progressives Congress (APC) leader, Bola Tinubu, suffer tragedy as his first son, Jide, passed away a couple of months ago, just as Dapo Abiodun, Heyden Petrol owner’s first son, DJ Olu, also passed away prematurely.
 
Expectedly, the pain of separation from Kikaose still pierces the hearts of my family members like a sharp sword, but we have resolved that although we miss Kikaose sorely, we will not mourn like pagans. Instead, we will magnify God that Kikaose led a holy life as we believe she has taken her place in the bosom of Jesus Christ, as she faithfully affirmed and looked forward to before she passed.
 
Most importantly, my family believes that even though we lost her, heaven gained as we now have Kikaose interceding for us in heaven until we meet at the rapture.”

Today, those of us who had identified as united in grief in the piece published some 8 years ago-Chief Tony Annenih has passed away, perhaps owing to old age, and Asiwaju Bola Tinubu has become the President of Nigeria just as Dapo Abiodun is currently the governor of Ogun state.
That reflects how dynamic life can be.

Although the piece reproduced above helped me in 2017 to dispel the pain of the loss, the grief that drove me to write it—the loss of my daughter, Kikaose—remains deeply felt eight years on. That pain later compelled me to write a personal memoir, Beyond Loss and Grief: The Story of Kikaose Ebiye-Onyibe — A Survivor’s Manual for Coping with the Loss of a Child.

Available on Amazon and in select bookstores nationwide, including the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs (NIIA), the book is intended to support families confronting tragedies such as those experienced by Chimamanda Adichie’s family and mine.

Written both as therapy and as testimony, the memoir shares a heartbreaking yet hopeful story and includes afterwords by a psychologist and an education consultant to guide families navigating loss and those who may one day face it.

As I extend my condolences to Chimamanda and her family, I note that grief can either heal or destroy. There is grief that allows mourning and meaning, and grief that consumes those trapped within it.

Having read Chimamanda’s reflections on the loss of her parents back to back, I believe she understands the healing power of writing. It does not erase pain, but it helps one live with it. Eight years on, Kikaose’s photograph—also on the book’s cover—remains on my phone, a daily reminder that she lives on in my heart.

United by loss and grief, I appeal to Chimamanda and to the many voiceless victims of medical negligence in Nigeria and beyond to join in demanding accountability.
In fact, given the high rate of medical negligence in Nigeria why has the concept of medical legal not been born and thriving in Nigeria?

That is certainly one service that would enable us to honour our loved ones by fighting for justice and preventing avoidable deaths, so fewer innocent lives are lost before their time.

Magnus Onyibe, an entrepreneur, public policy analyst, author, democracy advocate, development strategist, an alumnus of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Massachusetts, USA, a Commonwealth Institute scholar, and a former commissioner in the Delta State government, sent this piece from Lagos.

One of the most difficult tasks for any writer—which I do not claim to be—is finding an appropriate title for a writing. There is a subtle challenge in achieving a perfect balance between the title and the message it carries… message and meaning.

The Human Element: Speed and Responsibility

I have read various narratives suggesting that “Nigeria happened” to Anthony Joshua regarding his recent accident. I beg to differ. While Nigeria has many systemic problems, we are often “the problem people” by way of our unique cultural habits. This piece attempts to capture the contradictions that define Nigeria and Nigerians, contradictions that also live within me.

Regarding the Anthony Joshua accident, I believe the cause was twofold: the recklessness of the driver and possibly poor supervision by the vehicle’s occupants. We simply drive too fast. As a reformed speedster who once drove from Lagos to Benin and back in under two hours each way during the early 1990s, I now recognize the danger. Today, I leave early and maintain a steady 100 km/h. Vehicles are mechanical and electrical systems; they can fail unpredictably. It is the responsibility of every passenger to moderate a driver’s speed.

The Misuse of the Road Shoulder

On Nigerian roads, foreign objects are a constant hazard. When drivers speed or overtake on the shoulder—a common but dangerous habit—reaction time becomes a crucial factor and may be insufficient to avoid catastrophe.

The Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) noted in their early report that the trailer involved in the Joshua accident was “properly parked” on the shoulder. The question is how long it had been parked where it was? Should trailers be allowed to take up permanent residency on road shoulders? Common sense suggests that the shoulder is for temporary emergencies or breakdowns until the vehicle can be towed to a workshop. In Nigeria, however, the shoulder serves as a permanent rest stop, bus stop, kiosk, market, workshop, and truck park. From Ogere to Chacharanchi, Ologbo to Bama, our road shoulders have been turned into parking lots, stifling traffic and creating death traps.

Fundamental Flaws in Road Design

Beyond human behavior, there are fundamental flaws in our road design and infrastructure. My perspective is informed by my work with the Road Sector Development Team of the Federal Highway Department (FHD) from 1994 to 1998. If we want a safer, more efficient future, we must consider four pillars of road development:

• Traffic Volume: Roads are more than access routes; they must be designed based on population data, city significance, growth projection modeling, and people and vehicle movement volumes. These factors determine the necessary number of lanes. Shockingly, the “transformational” Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road is being built as a 6-lane road, with no service lanes and no provision for off-ramps to rest stops, etc.  This is in 2025.  Given its cost, you have to be left scratching your head.

• Sound Engineering: We are notoriously “skittish” regarding the required thicknesses for road infrastructure. When the Subgrade, Sub-Base, Base Course, Binder Course, and Surface Course are not in the correct ratios (based on CBR standards), the road surface will certainly “weave” and fail.  I have seen road projects that make you want to shed a tear.  One rain and the surface will be washed away.

• Social and Business Considerations: Markets and businesses should never be within 50 meters of an expressway. The current situation, where markets, informal trading, shops, and even livestock markets etc., spill onto highways and create human traffic, is anathema to the concept of a highway. Trading spots must be moved to purpose-built facilities adjoined to the highway.

• Economic and Budgetary Considerations: While we want every Naira to go far, the cost of not building road infrastructure right the first time is immeasurable. The age-old excuse has always been that the budget cannot accommodate the design… we need to reduce the number of lanes or redesign the bridge or something.  Arbitrary project revisions based on supposed budgetary constraints, for example, reducing the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Road from its originally conceived 10 lanes to 6 lanes, ignoring critical traffic flow requirements in favor of personal pecuniary interests, is plain wicked.  We know about budget padding.

Conclusion

The arteries of our economic activity, our supply chains and migration channels, are being choked by poor design and short-sighted economic decisions. It is time to move past “braggadocio” and commit to doing things right. The cost of our current path is simply too great, including lost lives and property. We all want the right things, but refuse to do the right things.

Ohimai Unuigboje writes from Lagos