Feature/OPED
Infrastructure, Education and Abia State Example
By Jerome-Mario Utomi
It is a pedestrian knowledge that Vice-President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Kashim Shettima some weeks ago inaugurated the 188-megawatt geometric power plant in Aba, Abia state, to accelerate power supply to industrial clusters in the region.
The power plant is a private sector-driven initiative and is described as the first and biggest integrated electricity facility in Nigeria, located in the Osisioma industrial area of the south-eastern state and it is understood that Aba Power Limited Electric, a new electricity distribution company (DisCo), will take electricity from the plant and supply it to nine local government areas — out of 17 — in Abia state.
While this feat is celebrated, what appears very interesting is the remark by the state governor that “When he first saw the proposal for geometric integrated power plant, he knew that he had to be involved immediately because, if just 50 per cent of what had been proposed could be achieved, the industrial output from this great city and its environs would triple and millions of new jobs will be created directly and indirectly in the short to medium term. The success of the power project will send a clear signal to local and international investors that Aba is open for businesses. He stated.
Indeed, while the state governor’s decision to associate with the initiative and his laudable efforts in other sectors, particularly as infrastructural provisions in the state remain commendable, this piece believed and still believes that Governor Alex Otti, recent allocation of 20% of the state’s 2024 annual budget to the education sector remains a positive development in the country that deserves our collective praise.
Aside from demonstrating a government’s unwavering commitment to elevating these crucial sectors to their utmost potential, ultimately benefiting our citizens, allocating 20% and 15% of the state’s 2024 annual budget to education and health, respectively, marks a historic milestone in Nigeria’s budgeting.
The facts are there and speak for it.
Successive administrations at both state and Federal levels have done very little when it comes to funding education. These have led to multi-faceted challenges that confront us today.
Take, as an illustration, a particular report in 2013, described as mind-numbing the awareness that about 10.5 million Nigerian children of school age are not enrolled in schools. Out of this number, the report explained that about 9 million, are children of beggars, fishermen and other less privileged people in society.
Again, in 2018, a survey showed that the population of out-of-school children in Nigeria had risen from 10.5 million to 13.2 million, the highest in the world.
The survey says something else; there is still a huge number of those who are in school, but are learning nothing, noting that schooling does not always lead to learning. In Nigeria, there are more non-learners in school than out of school, it concluded.
A similar study expressed worry that with the nation’s current population of about 200 million, 45 per cent of which are below 15 years old, there is a huge demand for learning opportunities translating into increased enrolment. This has created challenges in ensuring quality education since resources are spread more thinly, resulting in more than 100 pupils for one teacher in most of the public primary and secondary schools in the country.
There exist, in my opinion, three major troubling realities that characterize the situation as a crisis.
First is the awareness that Nigeria is not in short supply of policy measures and laws to ensure that no child is left behind in education. Yet, the number keeps swelling each year. As argued elsewhere, there is free and compulsory primary and junior secondary education to cater for children aged five to 14 years.
To explain this point, the Universal Basic Education Act 2004 is the legal framework that provides for compulsory, free and universal basic education for all children of primary and junior secondary school age in the country. There is also the Child Rights Act, which reinforces this as a basic human right by prescribing schooling up to junior secondary school.
UBEC intervention funds as we know are focused on collaboration with other state actors towards improving access to basic education and reducing Nigeria’s out-of-school children. The budgetary allocation for education for example in 2020 is N671.07 billion constituting 6.7%. Of the N671.07 billion allocated to the Federal Ministry of Education, the sum includes the statutory transfer allocated to the Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC), which is N111.79 billion.
Yet, most of the states cannot draw from this fund as a result of their (states) inability to provide the counterpart funding.
So, what benefits is the fund?
It was such encumbrance I presume, that some years ago, prompted the Ekiti State Governor, Dr Kayode Fayemi, to call on the Federal Government to remove counterpart funding, as part of basic requirements for states to access Federal Government funding of Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC)
The second factor fueling of school challenge in Nigeria stems from the awareness that despite the Universal Declaration of education as a fundamental human right for everyone and this right was further detailed in the Convention against Discrimination in Education, Nigerian governments, particularly the northern governors, failed to turn more of their energies in, or focus their creativity on the useful things that will translate to the empowerment of the people.
They made policies that view education as very narrow and restricted.
Presently, what Nigeria needs is a restless determination to make the idea of governance a reality. At this critical point of our nationhood, Federal and State governors must draw a lesson from Abia state government. They need to do this work and in doing the work, stimulate their people, particularly the youths to learn and acquire higher levels of skills and techniques for economic independence.
Certain technical steps must be taken.
First, it is time to recognize that any nation desirous of securing the future of its people must invest in education. This is more urgent in the North where it is agreed that historical underdevelopment in Western education is responsible, more than the diversity in religious loyalties, for the social imbalance between the region and the South.
Similarly, the hour has come for state governors in Nigeria to adopt and support the 2030 sustainable agenda- a United Nations initiative and successor programme to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs)- with a collection of 17 global goals formulated among other aims to promote and cater for people, peace, planet, and poverty. And has at its centre; partnership and collaboration, ecosystem thinking, co-creation and alignment of various intervention efforts by the public and private sectors and civil society.
The reason for this assertion is barefaced.
Few years ago, it was reported that Mathew Hassan Kukah- a well-informed, self-contained and quietly influential Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto had during a four-day workshop tagged ‘’Interfaith Dialogue and Engagement’’ for Christians and Muslims in Minna, Niger state that the Kukah Centre (TKC), promised to introduce skill acquisition centres in the Northern part of the country where about 10 million Almajiri children will acquire vocations of their choice.
For sure, with the slow economic but high population growth in Nigeria particularly in the north, such a programme would have been an effective tool for fighting unemployment and consolidating economic growth. But for a yet-to-be-identified reason(s), no governor from the north bought into that opening provided or encouraged their youth to access such an opportunity.
Regardless of what others may say, it is in the interest of the government to educate its people on different skills that create jobs for the youths as a formidable way of curbing crime and reducing threatening insecurity in the country. It should be done not merely for political consideration but from the views of national development and sustenance of our democracy and the best place to start is adequate funding of the education sector and deliberate effort to drastically reduce the number of our school children.
When this is achieved, it will in turn bring about sustained peace; result in improved hygiene and medical care, and greater educational opportunities. Like Abia state, other state governments are hereby enjoined by this piece to embark on aggressive education of their people, ensuring its compulsion to a certain level.
To catalyse this process, a shift in action is important as ‘we cannot solve our socio-economic challenges with the same thinking we used when we created it’. The governors need to bring a change in the leadership paradigm by switching over to a leadership style that is capable of making successful decisions built on a higher quality of information.
Utomi is the Programme Coordinator (Media and Policy) for Social and Economic Justice Advocacy (SEJA), Lagos. He can be reached via jeromeutomi@yahoo.com/08032725374
By Jerome-Mario Utomi
The April 12, 2025, defection of members of the Delta Unity Group (DUG) to the All Progressive Congress (APC) signposts a major political shift in Delta’s politics.
Pundits believe that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which presently controls the state needs a miracle to win Delta’s 2027 governorship election given the massive haemorrhage that has hit it. Essentially, the over 10,000 members of the DUG and their supporters who defected to the APC were made up of seasoned grassroots PDP chieftains.
The defectors were received by the National Chairman of the All-Progressive Congress (APC), Mr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, Governor Monday Okpebholo of Edo State, and the Chairman of the Governing Board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Mr Chiedu Ebie, alongside other notable political figures in Delta State.
So far, Deltans are enamoured by the significant political shift with many describing the development as a political earthquake which was long overdue. Because of its grassroots orientation, political analysts have likened the DUG to the Mandate Group, an independent political pressure group that midwifed the election of Mr Bola Tinubu, now President, as Lagos State Governor in the late 1990s.
In the run up to the 2023 presidential election, among so many objectives, the group was primed and positioned to defend President Tinubu’s mandate and promote democracy, unity, justice, and liberty in Nigeria, mobilize support for him and Vice President Kashim Shettima’s administration, Promote Unity and Justice: Foster national unity, justice, and liberty for all Nigerians among others.
The Mandate Group which has established structures in all 36 states, with plans to launch state chapters and currently have 580,000 members in Lagos and aim to reach 40 million members nationwide within the next 12 months, targets various segments of society, including: Students, Workers, Artisans, Teachers, Fishermen, Farmers and Women.
In like manner, the DUG has emerged as a third force in Delta State politics. Although it is not a new body, it has, over the years, been quietly bestriding Delta’s political landscape for the good of the state. Call it a third force in the politics of Delta State, and you won’t be wrong because, from all ramifications, that is what DUG represents.
DUG is by no means a political party, but, as the name implies, it is a Delta State based political pressure group convened a few years ago by the selfless, foresighted and influential trio of Mr Olu-Tokunbo (Lulu) Enaboifo, Mr Chiedu Ebie and Sir Itiako (Malik) Ikpokpo.
Their aim and dream were to establish a political pressure group with an agenda to modernize Delta State and also serve as the brain box of the campaign platform of Olorogun David Edevbie, who was vying for the governorship candidate of PDP towards the 2023 gubernatorial election.
Even though the aspiration ended with the Supreme Court ruling in favour of Governor Sheriff Oborevwori of Delta State, the DUG remained a strong force that started building gradually on the dream of a modernized Delta State. DUG has an organizational structure of 17 National Executive Council members, a Board of Trustees, and Local Government Executives in all the 25 local governments in Delta State, with Ward Executives in all the wards across Delta State, DUG is deeply rooted in the grassroots of Delta State with its cell-like structures.
Prior to the 2023 election, a wing of DUG, at the Obinoba Declaration, crossed over to APC, where the APC governorship candidate, Mr Ovie Omo-Agege, described them as the intelligent wing of PDP.
The group significantly made a huge difference in the 2023 general elections in Delta State. The DUG members in the Delta North Senatorial District, at that point in time, remained with PDP and after full deliberation and strategizing, opted to support the candidature of the APC governorship candidate and all other candidates of APC, even though they had not formally left the PDP. Consequently, most of them were either suspended or cast away by PDP after the elections.
It was easy to blend and work harmoniously with the progressives due to the progressive mindset of DUG members. After the 2023 general elections in Delta State, DUG members of Ika Federal Constituency continued to align and work closely with the APC to strengthen the party and ensure that it is properly positioned to convert the Ika Federal Constituency to an APC constituency come 2027.
To the glory of God, President Tinubu found DUG’s co-founder/convener, Mr Ebie, fit to chair the Governing Board of the NDDC in 2023. This further gave the DUG more vigor to project the Renewed Hope Agenda of the progressive governance of Mr President. Following this appointment, Ika Federal Constituency became the heartbeat of DUG in Delta State, which has now radiated positively to Ndokwa/Ukwuani and Aniocha/Oshimili Federal Constituencies in Delta North.
This wave, which has led to the massive decamping of members of PDP and the Labour Party into DUG in preparation for absorption into the APC, has also witnessed the reactivation of some dormant APC ambers and the massive welcoming of previously non-partisan and newly retired civil servants into the APC, having witnessed the positive impact of the Renewed Hope Agenda of Mr. President.
Because the group was fully poised for the reconfiguration of Delta State in the progressive fold of the APC, it is therefore, not surprising to witness the humongous crowd that emptied into APC on 12th day of April, 2025 in Agbor, Ika Federal Constituency, Delta State.
Going by the above development, it is obvious that come 2027, Ika nation in particular and Deltans in general shall witness the dethronement of People’s Democratic Party, PDP, in the state and enthronement of a people focused leadership to be formed by the All Progressive Congress, APC, in line with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda.
Utomi, a media specialist, writes from Lagos, Nigeria. He can be reached via Jeromeutomi@yahoo.com/
Africa’s creative industries, from music and film to fashion, writing, and branding, are experiencing remarkable growth. However, as the sector flourishes, so do the threats posed by piracy and copyright infringement. Without proper protection, creators risk losing the value and recognition they deserve for their original work.
Copyright remains the first and most important line of defence. In many African countries, copyright protection begins automatically once a creative work, such as a song, logo, film, or design, is fixed in a tangible form. This protection can last for the creator’s lifetime, and in most cases, up to 70 years after. Yet, while automatic copyright provides a foundation, official registration strengthens legal standing and can be critical in resolving disputes.
When a creator’s work is used without permission, the violation must be addressed swiftly. Experts advise that the first step is to gather evidence—screenshots, URLS, timestamps, user details, and even data showing engagement or financial gain from the misused content. Proof of ownership, such as original files with timestamps, draft versions, or social media records of earlier uploads, is equally vital.
“Creators should always have proof of ownership ready,” says Frikkie Jonker, Director of Anti-Piracy at MultiChoice. “That could be anything from original project files to old emails or posts. It’s one of the most effective tools in enforcing your rights.”
Once evidence is collected, creators can issue takedown requests through social platforms or send formal cease-and-desist letters to website owners or hosts. Although enforcement processes differ by country, most African nations have copyright laws aligned with global standards like the U.S. DMCA. In many cases, showing credible ownership is enough to have infringing content removed.
If infringement continues or is being done at scale, such as by piracy rings or repeat offenders, creators may need to escalate the issue by reporting it to national copyright commissions or law enforcement. Efforts are also being bolstered across the continent through cooperation under agreements like the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), with international bodies like Interpol, Afripol, and WIPO supporting cross-border enforcement.
Preventative measures are just as important. Creators are encouraged to use tools like digital watermarking and content fingerprinting to protect their work from unauthorised use online. Furthermore, smart monetisation strategies, such as YouTube’s Content ID syste,m can allow creators to earn revenue even when their content is reused without prior permission.
By understanding their rights, taking proactive steps to protect their creations, and using available technologies, African creatives can safeguard their work while continuing to build sustainable, long-term careers.
By Saifullahi Attahir
If there was ever anything that gave me goosebumps and immense pleasure, it was being surrounded by intellectuals and mature minds absorbing facts and figures about governance, economics, public health, policymaking, national security, and international relations. In such situations I easily lose myself, forgetting almost all other things.
Even at medical school, my best lectures were those with frequent digressions, whereby the lecturer would discuss the pathogenesis of diseases for 30 minutes and later sidetrack into discussing politics, governance, or other life issues. I always enjoyed classes led by Prof. Sagir Gumel, Dr. Murtala Abubakar, Dr. Rasheed Wemimo, Dr. Aliyu Mai Goro, and co.
During such lectures, I often observed some of my colleagues disappointment for such deviation. I rather casually show indifference, for I was eternally grateful for such discussions due to the stimulatory effect they had on my mind.
After such classes, I sometimes followed up with the lecturer, not to ask about a medical concept I did not grasp, but to ask for further explanation on policy making, project execution, budgetary expenditures, why African countries are left behind, and similar pressing issues.
In situations where I can’t catch up with the lecturer, I jotted down the questions for further deliberation.
One of the manifest feature I know about my greediness was at reading books. I can open five different books in a day. I lack such discipline to finish up one before another. I can start reading ‘Mein Kampf’ by Adolf Hitler, and halfway through 300 pages, I would pick up ‘My Life’ by Sir Ahmadu Bello, and would have to concurrently read both until the end.
I often scolded myself for such an attitude, but I can’t help myself. The only way to practice such discipline was to at least read two different books in a day. Such was a triumph in my practice of self-discipline. This was apart from my conventional medical textbooks.
To some of my friends, I was called an accidental medical doctor, but actually it was a perfect fate guided by the merciful Lord that I’m studying medicine.
For it was only medicine that makes reading books easier for you. Although time is precious in this profession, but one finds it easier to do anything you are passionate about. The daily interaction we have with people at their most vulnerable state was another psychostimulant. Seeing humans suffering from disease conditions is heartache. Some of the causes are mere ignorance, poverty, superstitions, and limited resources.
The contribution one can give couldn’t be limited to just prescribing drugs or surgical procedures that end up affecting one person. It’s much better to involve one self in to position that may bring possible change to the whole society even in form of orientation.
What also motivated me more was how I wasn’t the first to traverse this similar path. Bibliophiles were common among medical students and medical professionals.
At international level, the former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Dr. Mahathir Muhammad, was a physician.
Most of the current economic development of Malaysia was attributed to him. The South American revolutionary figure Che Guevara was a physician. Atul Gawande was an endocrinologist, health policy analyst, adviser to former President Obama, campaign volunteer to former President Bill Clinton, and adviser to USAID/WHO on health policies.
Frantz Fanon was another physician, psychiatrist, racial discrimination activist, and political writer. Dr. Zakir Naik was a renowned Islamic scholar, comparative religion expert, and physician.
At the national level, Prof. Usman Yusuf is a haematologist, former NHIS DG, and currently a political activist. Dr. Aminu Abdullahi Taura was a psychiatrist and former SSG to the Jigawa state government. Dr. Nuraddeen Muhammad was a psychiatrist and former cabinet minister to President Goodluck Jonathan.
During ward rounds and clinics, my mind often wanders to enquire not just about the diagnosis but the actual cause of the disease condition; why would a 17-year-old multiparous young lady develop peripartum cardiomyopathy (PPCM)? Why would a 5-year-old child develop severe anaemia from a mosquito bite? Why would a 25-year-old friend of mine develop chronic kidney disease, and his family would have to sell all their belongings for his treatment? Why are our Accident and Emergency units filled with road traffic accident cases? Was it bad road conditions or lack of adherence to traffic laws and orders?
Why are African countries still battling with 19th century diseases like Tuberculosis, filariasis, and malarial infections? Why issues of fighting cervical cancer and vaccination campaigns are treated with contempt in our societies? Why access to basic primary healthcare in Nigeria was still a luxury 50 years after Alma Ata declaration?
The questions are never-ending…
Answers to these questions could be found not in the conventional medical textbooks like Robbins/Cotrand, Davidson, or Sabiston. Answers to these questions are there on our faces. Answers to these questions are tied to the very fabric of our social life, our public institutions, our culture, and our life perspectives.
In order to make any significant contribution towards the betterment of this kind of society, it would be quite easier as an insider rather than an outsider. You can’t bring any positive outcome by just talking or commenting. It was rightly stated that a cat in gloves catches no mice.
The real players in a game are always better than the spectators. A player deserves accolades despite his shortcomings, frequent falls, and inability to deliver as planned theoretically. For the player has seen it all, because so many things in public life are not as they appear. It’s only when you are there that the reality becomes visible. This is the reason why many leaders who have goodwill and enjoy public support appear to have lost track or contributed insignificantly when elected or appointed into office.
But despite all these challenges, one can’t decline to do something good just because something bad might happen. The risk is worth it….
Attahir wrote from Federal University Dutse
-
Feature/OPED5 years agoDavos was Different this year
-
Travel/Tourism9 years ago
Lagos Seals Western Lodge Hotel In Ikorodu
-
Showbiz2 years agoEstranged Lover Releases Videos of Empress Njamah Bathing
-
Banking7 years agoSort Codes of GTBank Branches in Nigeria
-
Economy2 years agoSubsidy Removal: CNG at N130 Per Litre Cheaper Than Petrol—IPMAN
-
Banking2 years agoFirst Bank Announces Planned Downtime
-
Sports2 years agoHighest Paid Nigerian Footballer – How Much Do Nigerian Footballers Earn
-
Technology4 years agoHow To Link Your MTN, Airtel, Glo, 9mobile Lines to NIN