Feature/OPED
May 29 and Quest for A New Nigeria
By Jerome-Mario Chijioke Utomi
As the nation Nigeria stands at the exit door of President Muhammadu Buhari-led federal government and gazes at the May 29 inauguration date of incoming administrations at both state and federal government levels, it is important to underline that the protracted leadership crisis witnessed at both state and federal levels occurred not because the democracy and federal systems we practice are on their own bad or unable to provide the needed solution to the nation’s array of political and economic needs, but because too many politicians and public office holders exercised power and responsibility not as a trust for the public good, rather, but as an opportunity for private gain.
This glaringly deformed leadership style has left the nation with three separate but similar harsh effects; first, it destroyed the social infrastructures relevant for a meaningful and acceptable level of the social existence of the people.
Secondly, making the nation’s economy go against the provisions of the constitutions as an attempt to disengage governance from public sector control of the economy has only played into waiting for the hands of the profiteers of goods and services to the detriment of the Nigerian people.
Thirdly and very key, conspired and visited the nation with myriads of sociopolitical contradictions stripped of social harmony, justice, equity and equality.
Adding context to the discourse, this is a kind of leadership crisis that happens when ‘lust for power prevails over granting people the love and care they deserve, when the interest and destiny of one individual become more important than those of the whole nation when the interests of some groups and cliques are served instead of those of all the people. In other words, this state of affairs happens when you put the people at the service of the government, in sharp contrast with the norm.
Aside from non-adherence to public opinion, which has no doubt thrown the economy into reserve and passed the burden onto the backs of Nigerians, this piece believes that the most ‘profound’ failure of the present administration (state and Federal) which the incoming administration must avoid if they are desirous of success, is their persistent inabilities to promptly respond to the socioeconomic need of Nigerians.
For example, the government’s shift of attention from job creation has undermined the feelings of Nigerians and shifted the distribution of income strongly in favour of those in government.
At the very moment, information released on April 11, 2023, by KPMG, a multidimensional consulting firm, disclosed that Nigeria’s unemployment rate would increase to 40.6 per cent in 2023 from 37.7 per cent in 2022. According to economic analysts, this was due to weak performance in the job-elastic sectors and low labour absorption of sectors that will drive growth.
In my view, the average Nigerian is worse off now, economically and materially, than he/she was in 2015. The people are living through the worst social and economic crisis since independence; poor leadership; poor strategy for development; lack of capable and effective state and bureaucracy; lack of focus on sectors that will improve the condition of living of citizens, such as education, health, agriculture and the building of infrastructure; corruption; undeveloped, irresponsible and parasitic private sector; weak civil society; emasculated labour and student movement and poor execution of policies and programmes’.
In the past 8years, the Nigerian workforce grew, but the number of manufacturing jobs has actually declined as a result of the relocation of these industries to neighbouring African countries. A development occasioned by the inability of the FG to guarantee security and electricity.
Jobs created by the federal government under the N-Power programme were part-time and not secured. Two third of those doing part-time jobs want full-time jobs and cannot find them. Unemployment is far and away from the top concern of Nigerians. Millions of workers have given up hope of finding employment.
This author is not alone in this line of belief.
At a recent lecture in Lagos delivered by the President of the African Development Bank (AfDB), Dr Akinwumi Adesina, titled: Nigeria – A Country of Many Nations: A Quest for National Integration, Dr Adesina lamented the high rate of joblessness among Nigerians, saying about 40 per cent of youths were unemployed. While noting that the youths were discouraged, angry and restless as they looked at a future that did not give them hope, he said all hope was not lost as youths have a vital role to play if the country should arrive at its destined destination.
Adesina spoke the mind of Nigerians. His words and argument were admirable, and most importantly, it remains the most dynamic and cohesive action expected of a leader of his class to earn a higher height of respect. The truth is that Nigerians have gotten used to such statistics while unemployment commentaries in the country have become a regular music hall act.
Take as an illustration, in the first quarter of 2021, a report published by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on its website noted that Nigeria’s Unemployment Rate has risen from 27.1 per cent in the second quarter of 2020 to 33 per cent. Aside from making it the second highest on Global List, the NBS report, going by analysis, shows that ‘more than 60 per cent of Nigeria’s working-age population is younger than 34.
Unemployment for people aged 15 to 24 stood at 53.4 per cent in the fourth quarter and at 37.2 per cent for people aged 25 to 34. The jobless rate for women was 35.2 per cent compared with 31.8 per cent for men.
The recovery of the economy with 200 million people will be slow, with growth seen at 1.5 per cent this year, after last year’s 1.9 per cent contraction, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The output will only recover to pre-pandemic levels in 2022, the lender said. The number of people looking for jobs will keep rising as population growth continues to outpace output expansion.
Nigeria is expected to be the world’s third-most-populous country by 2050, with over 300 million people, according to the United Nations. Unquestionably, while this quadrupling over the last five years, which has attracted varying reactions from well-meaning Nigerians, remains a sad commentary by all ramifications as it is both worrying and scary, the present development demands two separate but similar actions. First is the urgent shift from lamentation and rhetoric to finding solutions by asking solution-oriented questions. The second has to do with the implementation of experts’ advice/solutions to unemployment in Nigeria. This is indeed time to commit to mind the words of Franklin D. Roosevelt, former President of the United States of America, that “extraordinary conditions call for extraordinary remedies.”
Beginning with questions, it has become important for the incoming administration to ask what could be responsible for the ever-increasing unemployment rate in Nigeria. Is it leadership or the nation’s educational system? If it is faulty education sector-driven, what is the government (both state and federal) going to do to rework the policies since education is in the concurrent list of the nation’s 1999 constitution (as amended)? Are the leaders embodied with leadership virtues that the global community can respect? Or moral and ethical principles the people can applaud with enthusiasm?
Experts have pointed out that to arrest the drifting unemployment situation in the country, four sectors of ‘interest’ to watch are education, science and technology, agriculture and infrastructure.
On the educational system in the country, analysts are of the view that the education policies of the 6-3-3-4 system are excellent in the policy statement, but the inability of the financiers to provide the teaching tools for its success has truncated its intended goal and objectives. However, to arrest the unemployment challenge, they added, entrepreneurial programmes should be integrated into the educational system from primary schools to universities. Creativity, courage and endurance are skills that should be taught by psychologists to students in all classes of our educational system.
Nigeria, they explained, has to increase the number of her current Polytechnics, Colleges of Technology and Technical Colleges drastically in relation to the in-explicable very large number of Universities and related Academies in Nigeria’s economy in order to clearly address the training and development of professional and technical skills for Technologies and Industrial goods production in Nigeria’s Economy.
It is important, in my view, that any country like Nigeria, desirous of achieving sustainable development, must throw its weight behind agriculture by creating an enabling environment that will encourage youths to take to farming. First, separate from the worrying report that by 2050, global consumption of food and energy is expected to double as the world’s population and incomes grow, while climate change is expected to have an adverse effect on both crop yields and the number of arable acres, we are in dire need of solution to this problem because unemployment has diverse implications. Security-wise, a large unemployed youth population is a threat to the security of the few that are employed. Any transformation that does not have job creation as its main objective will not take us anywhere, and the agricultural sector has the capacity to absorb the teeming unemployed youths in the country.
The second reason is that globally, there are dramatic shifts from agriculture in preference for the white-collar jobs-a trend that urgently needs to be reversed. In the United States of America, there exists a shift in the locations and occupations of urban consumers. In 1900, about 40 per cent of the total population was employed on the farm, and 60 per cent lived in rural areas. Today, the respective figures are only about one per cent and 20 per cent.
Over the past half-century, the number of farms has fallen by a factor of three. As a result, the ratio of urban eaters to rural farmers has markedly risen, giving the food consumer a more prominent role in shaping the food and farming system. The changing dynamic has also played a role in public calls to reform federal policy to focus more on the consumer implications of the food supply chain.
Separate from job creation, averting malnutrition which constitutes a serious setback to the socio-economic development of any nation, is another reason why Nigeria must embrace agriculture – a vehicle for food security and a sustainable socio-economic sector. Agriculture production should receive heightened attention. In Nigeria, an estimated 2.5 million children under five suffer from severe acute malnutrition (SAM) annually, exposing nearly 420,000 children within that age bracket to early death from common childhood illnesses such as diarrhoea, pneumonia and malaria. Government must provide the needed support through funding, providing technical know-how and other specialised training.
For Nigeria to be all that it can be, the youth of Nigeria must be all they can be.” The future of Nigeria depends on what it does today with its dynamic youth population. This demographic advantage must be turned into a first-rate and well-trained workforce, for Nigeria, for the region, and for the world. The incoming administration must prioritise investments in the youth: in upskilling them for the jobs of the future, not the jobs of the past; by moving away from so-called youth empowerment to youth investment; to opening up the social and political space to the youth to air their views and become a positive force for national development; and for ensuring that we create youth-based wealth.”
On the imperatives of Infrastructural development such as roads, rail and electricity, the incoming government must recognize the fact that infrastructure enables development and provides the services that underpin the ability of people to be economically productive, for example, via transport. “The transport sector has a huge role in connecting populations to where the work is,” says Ms Marchal. Infrastructural investments help stem economic losses arising from problems such as power outages or traffic congestion. The World Bank estimates that in Sub-Saharan Africa, closing the infrastructure quantity and quality gap relative to the world’s best performers could raise GDP growth per head by 2.6 per cent annually.
For us to achieve the target objective in the rail sector, the incoming government must start thinking of a rail system that will have a connection of major economic towns/cities as the focus.
Achieving this objective will help the poor village farmers in Benue/Kano and other remote areas earn more money, contributes to lower food prices in Lagos and other cities through the impact on the operation of the market, increase the welfare of household both in Kano, Benue, Lagos and others while it improves food security in the country, reduce stress/pressure daily mounted on Nigerian roads by articulated/haulage vehicles and drastically reduce road accidents on our major highways.
In the area of electricity/power generation and distribution, there is an urgent imperative for the incoming government to openly admit and adopt both structural and managerial changes that impose more leadership discipline than conventional and create government institutions that are capable of making successful decisions built on a higher quality of information which needs to be granted.
To give an example, in 2005 and 2010, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo and Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan-led the federal government, respectively, came up with the electric power sector reform, EPSR, ACT 2005 and the roadmap for power sector reform of 2010, which was targeted at sanitizing the power sector, ensure efficient and adequate power supply to the country. The project ended in the frames – reportedly gulping billions of dollars without contributing the targeted megawatt to the nation’s power needs.
The Buhari-led administration is presently in a similar partnership with the German government and Siemens. But in my observation, the only change that has taken place since this new development is thoughtless increments of bills/tariffs paid by Nigerians.
No nation can survive under this form of arrangement.
Finally, while this piece calls on the incoming government to provide Nigerians with a standard of living adequate for their health and well-being, Nigerians, on their part, must look up to God, their maker and talk to him through positive actions. They must join their faith with that of James Weldon Johnson to pray; ‘Oh God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, Thou hast us far on the way; Thou who by the might lead us into the light. Keep us forever in part we pray lest our feet stray away from places, our God where we meet thee. Lest our heart is drunk with the wine of the world, and we forget thee; Shadowed beneath thy hand, may we forever stand true to our God, true to our native land’. To this, I say a very big amen.
Jerome-Mario is the programme coordinator (Media and Public Policy) for Social and Economic Justice Advocacy (SEJA). He can be reached via Je*********@***oo.com/08032725374
By Blaise Udunze
It is considered that in every organised society, the home is supposed to be a place of security. It should be where families find peace after a hard day’s work, where children grow, where dreams are nurtured, and where the pressures of life temporarily fade away. This narrative comes with keen interest, having witnessed that for millions of Nigerians, home has become the country’s newest economic battlefield. This is fast becoming the experience for the vast majority of Nigerians.
Across the length and breadth of Nigeria, citizens are deeply lamenting the skyrocketing rent. Regrettably, this has become one of the fastest-rising costs of living. An unexpected trend which has become a huge concern is that currently apartments that were rented for N700,000 or N1 million just a few years ago are now advertised for N3 million, N5 million or even higher. Amidst this bizarre development, do you know that they are often without significant improvements to the property itself? One key troubling development is that recent estimates suggest that house rents in many Nigerian cities have surged by between 100 and 300 per cent over the last two years, a pace that far exceeds the country’s official inflation rate and has placed unprecedented pressure on households already struggling with rising food, transportation and energy costs.
Landlords, through estate agents, increasingly demand one or two years’ rent upfront. Tenants are expected to pay 10 per cent of the principal rent toward agency fees, legal fees, agreement charges, caution deposits, and, in most cases, the service charge (which appears to be higher), security levies, and utility-related costs before receiving the keys. In many cases, these additional charges add hundreds of thousands or even millions of naira to the advertised rent, making the total cost of securing accommodation far beyond the reach of average-income earners. Equally disturbing is the unchecked exploitation by agent marauders, who prey on desperate house seekers by imposing outrageous and often illegal fees that further deepen Nigeria’s housing crisis. What should ordinarily be a routine life event has become a financial ordeal.
Nigeria’s housing crisis is no longer simply a property story. It has evolved into an economic emergency with profound implications for families, businesses, public health and national development.
The Federal Government’s National Housing Data Technical Committee estimates that Nigeria faces a housing deficit of approximately 15 to 20million homes. At the same time, millions of existing houses are considered structurally inadequate and lack access to essential infrastructure. If this figure is something to consider, anyone would know that these figures reveal two overlapping crises. First, this shows that millions of Nigerians cannot find decent accommodation, whilst millions more live in overcrowded, unsafe or poorly serviced housing.
At the same time, Nigeria’s population continues to expand rapidly, with cities absorbing hundreds of thousands of new residents every year.
One of the challenges is that urbanisation has consistently outpaced housing development, widening the gap between supply and demand while, predictably, rents continue to rise and affordability continues to decline.
Remarkably, housing experts generally recommend that households should spend no more than 30 per cent of their income on accommodation. For many Nigerian families, that recommendation has become almost impossible to achieve.
Teachers, nurses, journalists, police officers, civil servants, young bankers, entrepreneurs, artisans and other middle-income earners increasingly devote more than half of their annual income to rent alone. For many, housing has become the single largest financial obligation, leaving very little for every other necessity of life.
After paying landlords, food budgets shrink. Healthcare is postponed. Children are transferred to less expensive schools. Retirement savings disappear. Business investments are suspended. Vacations become unimaginable luxuries. The rent bill has become the first expense families think about and the last financial burden they can escape.
The effects extend far beyond individual households. This is totally outrageous, as financial analysts have long observed that when accommodation consumes a disproportionate share of disposable income, consumer spending across the economy inevitably weakens.
Families postpone replacing household appliances. Vehicle purchases are delayed. Furniture sales decline. Restaurants receive fewer customers. Clothing retailers experience lower patronage. Small businesses lose purchasing power from consumers whose earnings are now tied up in rent. The result is a vicious economic cycle in which rising housing costs suppress consumption, reduce business activity, and ultimately slow economic growth.
Behind every rent increase lies a deeply personal story. Consider a fictional but representative family whose experience mirrors that of countless Nigerians. The aspect of receiving notice that the annual rent for their modest two-bedroom apartment would rise from N1.2 million to N3 million comes with uneasiness. At this point, the Blessings’ family had spent months desperately searching for an alternative.
Unable to afford the increase and harassment from the landlord, they eventually relocated nearly 30 kilometres away from their former neighbourhood. The consequences were immediate. Their children had to change schools. The family’s daily commuting time doubled. Transportation costs rose sharply. Family time disappeared.
The father now leaves home before sunrise and returns late at night. The mother spends more each month commuting than she once spent on groceries. Their financial burden has not disappeared. It has merely shifted from rent to transportation and also deals with other issues like epileptic power supply and flooding, especially during this rainy season.
Unfortunately, such stories are no longer exceptional. They have become increasingly common across Nigeria’s major cities. Perhaps no demographic feels this pressure more acutely than young professionals.
Come to think of it, graduates entering the workforce quickly discover that entry-level salaries cannot support decent accommodation close to their workplaces. You would also see many remaining with their parents far longer than anticipated. Other effects include seeing them share apartments with several unrelated adults to reduce costs, whilst some endure daily commutes lasting three or four hours because affordable housing exists only in distant suburbs.
The fact is that the consequences extend beyond inconvenience because long commuting hours reduce productivity, increase fatigue, heighten stress levels and significantly diminish quality of life. Another aspect of this, which is discouraging, is that for many talented young Nigerians, financial independence, home ownership and family formation are becoming increasingly distant aspirations. Several interconnected forces explain why rents continue to climb so aggressively.
Inflation has significantly increased the cost of cement, steel, roofing sheets and virtually every construction material required to build houses. The depreciation of the naira has made imported building materials substantially more expensive. No doubt, from recent findings, there are clear indications that there is a significant increase in the prices of building materials. Let us see the period between 2024 to 2026, Cement: N6,500 – N13,000; blocks: N600 – N1100; 30T of sand: N165,000 – N250,000; 30T of granite: N530,000 – N780,000; rebars (iron) ton: N850,000 – N1,150,000 amongst others. To be fair, it is a known fact that high interest rates have increased borrowing costs for developers, while land acquisition remains prohibitively expensive in many urban centres. The very question at heart is, how has this recent development significantly impacted the apartments built five years ago and beyond?
The government has made it difficult to the point that obtaining development approvals can be slow and costly. Developers also contend with multiple taxes, infrastructure levies and rising labour costs before construction even begins. No doubt, these expenses inevitably find their way into rental prices. But one question keeps running through the minds of many, which is, how do these directly impact apartments built many years back? The truth is that market realities alone do not explain every increase.
In many locations, speculative pricing has taken hold. Some landlords have raised rents far beyond what can reasonably be attributed to maintenance or inflation, taking advantage of overwhelming demand and the severe shortage of available accommodation.
The inability of many Nigerians to purchase homes has further intensified the pressure on the rental market. Inflation, high mortgage rates and limited access to long-term housing finance have pushed home ownership beyond the reach of millions, forcing them to remain tenants for much longer than planned. This should be blamed on the government of the day, as more people compete for a limited supply of rental properties, landlords possess even greater leverage to increase prices.
Housing insecurity is also producing a less visible but equally damaging consequence for deteriorating mental health.
The constant fear of eviction, the uncertainty surrounding annual rent reviews and the enormous pressure of raising large lump sums every one or two years create persistent psychological stress.
Think of the impact of parents’ worry about disrupting their children’s education. Young couples postpone marriage because they cannot afford accommodation. Family disagreements increasingly revolve around financial pressures. Consider the part of many Nigerians who quietly or secretly or unknowingly battle anxiety, emotional exhaustion and depression arising from the struggle to secure decent housing.
None of these psychological costs clearly appear in official economic statistics, but the truth is that they profoundly affect productivity, family stability and overall well-being. It is equally obvious that the crisis is also affecting employers and businesses.
Workers forced to travel long distances arrive at work exhausted. Traffic congestion consumes valuable productive hours each day. It turns out that companies increasingly struggle to retain staff who relocate in search of affordable accommodation. Also, know that many employers face mounting pressure to increase housing allowances simply to remain competitive.
All these call for a balancing as employees demand higher wages to offset escalating living costs, further increasing operating expenses for businesses already contending with inflation, unstable exchange rates and rising energy prices.
Housing affordability is therefore no longer merely a social concern. It has become a business and national competitiveness issue.
Though Nigeria is not alone in confronting housing affordability challenges, its recent trend calls for attention. Across Africa, rapid urbanisation continues to outpace housing supply.
For this reason, Kenya has introduced ambitious affordable housing programmes aimed at expanding supply, although implementation challenges remain; this can’t be compared to Nigeria’s current situation. Ghana is not left out of the equation as it continues to battle a significant housing deficit. Ghana is also grappling with the irony of completed homes that remain unaffordable for many citizens. South Africa, despite possessing a relatively more developed mortgage market, continues to experience severe affordability pressures in cities such as Johannesburg and Cape Town.
Nigeria’s situation, however, is intensified by its enormous population, rapid urban expansion, limited mortgage penetration and one of Africa’s largest housing deficits.
Nigeria has witnessed successive governments introducing affordable housing initiatives, mortgage schemes and public-private partnerships which fails before implementation. While these programmes represent positive intentions, delivery has consistently fallen far behind growing demand.
Housing experts argue that meaningful reform requires far more than constructing a limited number of housing estates.
Nigeria must simplify land acquisition processes, reduce infrastructure costs, expand mortgage accessibility, improve planning approvals, encourage private-sector investment in affordable housing and strengthen incentives for developers willing to build homes for middle- and low-income earners.
Improving housing data is important, but accurate statistics alone cannot reduce rents. Effective implementation remains the country’s greatest policy challenge.
Let’s consider some of these salient points proffered by urban planners who insist that Nigeria’s housing crisis cannot be solved exclusively through market forces. According to them, governments at all levels must invest strategically in infrastructure and create financing mechanisms that reduce development costs. To further help reduce the housing gap, they encourage the construction of affordable rental housing rather than focusing disproportionately on luxury developments.
The truth is that if housing continues to consume an ever-growing share of household income, consumer spending, investment and long-term economic growth will remain constrained. Another key barrier that must be addressed quickly, as highlighted by researchers, is inflation, limited housing finance, weak regulatory enforcement and inconsistent policy implementation, which happen to be major bottlenecks to affordable housing delivery.
One key question that yearns for answers is whether it is not obvious to the government and other stakeholders that housing is far more than concrete walls, roofing sheets and painted ceilings? The fact is that shelter, as the meaning implies, shapes educational outcomes, influences public health, determines productivity, strengthens families, supports social mobility and contributes directly to national competitiveness.
At this stage, it is a complete shame and at the same time an irony that a nation where hardworking teachers, nurses, journalists, entrepreneurs, artisans, security personnel and civil servants cannot comfortably afford decent shelter risks weakening its middle class, widening inequality and undermining sustainable economic growth.
If the truth must be told, Nigeria’s rent crisis is therefore not merely about landlords and tenants. For a fact, it is about the future of work, family stability, economic opportunity and social justice. Clearly, it is about whether millions of hardworking citizens can enjoy the dignity that comes with secure and affordable housing.
The mistake all along, which must be eschewed, is that a country’s progress is being measured solely by the number of luxury estates it builds or the height of its skyscrapers. More importantly, it should also be measured by whether ordinary citizens can afford a safe place to call home without sacrificing their children’s education, healthcare, savings or future aspirations.
If this is not adequately addressed, this rent trap will persist until affordable housing becomes a genuine national priority backed by bold reforms and sustained implementation; millions of Nigerians will continue facing an impossible choice, which would invariably lead them to surrender their financial future to keep a roof over their heads or abandon the comfort, security and dignity that every family deserves.
Concerned stakeholders shouldn’t continue to believe that the true cost of Nigeria’s rent crisis is therefore measured only in naira. It is measured in postponed dreams, delayed marriages, fractured families, declining productivity, abandoned ambitions, struggling businesses and the quiet erosion of hope among citizens who work tirelessly every day but find the simple promise of a decent home slipping further beyond their reach.
Blaise, a journalist and PR professional, writes from Lagos and can be reached via: bl***********@***il.com
By Blaise Udunze
Daily, the world watches Nigeria through a familiar lens in what appears to be a gory situation. Especially in cases when the news headlines tell stories of farmer-herder clashes, bandit attacks, kidnappings, villages reduced to ashes or deserted by the dwellers, as thousands of Nigerians have been displaced across states such as Zamfara, Plateau, Benue, Niger, Kaduna and Nasarawa. Subliminally, this is about to become a similarly ugly occurrence in southwestern Nigeria, which is fast becoming obvious if not nipped in the bud quickly.
Recorded data have shown that bandits, Boko Haram, and others killed over 190,000 Nigerians in 17 years and displaced 3.7 million people.
A human rights organisation, the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law (Intersociety), in its fearful revelation, has said that no fewer than 190,150 Nigerians have been killed by bandits, Boko Haram insurgents, and suspected armed herdsmen between July 2009 and March 19, 2026, as this calls for concern.
The dominant explanations often point to ethnic tensions, religious divisions, climate change, shrinking grazing routes or weak security institutions. No doubt, those factors are certainly part of Nigeria’s complex security crisis. Yet another question deserves serious examination.
What if, in some locations, the violence is also serving another purpose? What if some of the territories experiencing repeated displacement are the same places sitting atop some of Nigeria’s most valuable mineral deposits? More importantly, if such a pattern exists, who benefits when communities disappear?
Of a truth, these questions are uncomfortable, but undeniably they deserve careful investigation rather than dismissal.
For ages, Nigeria has been naturally endowed, and it is estimated to be rich in enormous significant reserves of gold, lithium, uranium, tin, columbite and other strategic minerals increasingly sought after in the global transition to clean energy technologies. As international demand for battery minerals continues to rise, these resources have become far more valuable than they were only a decade ago.
If one overlays publicly available geological information with maps showing persistent violence, some observers argue that striking geographical overlaps appear in several regions. Such overlaps alone cannot establish causation. Correlation is not proof of conspiracy. However, they raise questions worthy of independent scrutiny.
One issue attracting increasing attention and adequately yearns for answer is whether prolonged insecurity may inadvertently or deliberately create conditions that make mineral extraction easier.
Under Nigeria’s Nigerian Minerals and Mining Act 2007, mineral resources belong to the Federal Government, while mining rights are granted through licences and leases. Community engagement and land access are expected to form part of the licensing process, although implementation varies depending on circumstances. This raises an important policy question.
What happens when the communities expected to participate in those processes have already fled because of violence?
Displacement changes the dynamics of land ownership, consent and access. While no evidence automatically proves that attacks are orchestrated to facilitate mining, the sequence of violence followed by renewed commercial activity in some locations deserves closer examination by regulators, lawmakers and investigative journalists.
In conflict studies, researchers have long observed that wars often generate economic winners alongside humanitarian losers. Could elements of Nigeria’s insecurity also be producing economic beneficiaries?
Reports over the years have documented concerns about illegal mining operations across parts of northern Nigeria. Government agencies themselves have repeatedly acknowledged that criminal networks profit from the country’s vast mineral wealth. The unresolved question is whether isolated criminality has, in some instances, evolved into more sophisticated alliances involving political influence, financial interests and international supply chains. If so, the implications extend far beyond Nigeria.
Invariably, it is clearly known that lithium has become one of the world’s most strategic commodities, powering electric vehicle batteries and renewable energy storage systems. Gold has always remained one of the safest global investment assets during periods of uncertainty. Meanwhile, it is well confirmed that the global appetite for these minerals creates enormous financial incentives.
Suppose violent displacement reduces resistance to extraction. Suppose shell companies subsequently acquire mining interests. Suppose minerals then leave Nigeria through legitimate-looking export documentation while their true value remains understated.
These scenarios remain allegations unless supported by verifiable evidence. Yet they outline a framework that investigators may wish to test rather than ignore. Financial crime experts frequently identify trade mis-invoicing as one of the most common methods of illicit financial flows worldwide.
Could Nigeria’s solid minerals sector be vulnerable to similar practices? If valuable lithium ore is deliberately but inaccurately described as lower-value material on export documents, substantial wealth could potentially leave the country without reflecting its true market value. Likewise, if unrefined gold exits through privileged channels with limited scrutiny, questions naturally arise about oversight, transparency and accountability over criminal activities which have continued to stunt and disrupt the country’s socio-economic growth and at the same time cause carnage.
Such possibilities are not accusations against any particular institution or company. Rather, they illustrate why stronger monitoring systems are increasingly essential. Another question concerns logistics.
With the high level of criminal activities, industrial mining requires heavy machinery, diesel supplies, transportation networks and specialised personnel. These are not operations that can remain invisible indefinitely.
If certain territories are genuinely too dangerous for security agencies, how do industrial-scale extraction activities reportedly continue in some remote locations? If they do, who protects those operations? Who authorises their movement? Who verifies what is extracted? Who ensures royalties and export revenues reach public coffers? These are governance questions that demand institutional answers.
Equally important is the international dimension. Minerals extracted in Nigeria ultimately enter global supply chains. Gold may pass through international refining hubs before entering financial markets. Lithium may become part of battery manufacturing destined for electric vehicles, which are being sold across Europe, North America and Asia.
One known fact is that consumers purchasing products containing these minerals rarely know the full story of where they originated.
Increasingly, however, investors and governments are demanding ethical sourcing standards that trace minerals from extraction to final manufacture.
A critical factor that must be taken into cognisance is that if insecurity is creating opportunities for illegal or unethical extraction anywhere in the world, multinational companies have responsibilities alongside national governments, of which the onus falls on the Nigerian government.
Transparency cannot stop at the mine gate. Nor should accountability end at national borders. Another issue requiring attention concerns beneficial ownership.
Across many jurisdictions, shell companies can obscure the identities of individuals ultimately controlling commercial assets. If politically exposed persons or powerful business interests are hidden behind complex corporate structures registered offshore, identifying beneficiaries becomes significantly more difficult. This challenge is hardly unique to Nigeria.
Findings showed that from Latin America to Central Africa and Southeast Asia, resistant corporate networks have frequently complicated efforts to combat corruption and illicit resource extraction. That is precisely why open corporate registries, beneficial ownership databases and transparent mining licence disclosures are becoming global governance priorities. For Nigeria, the stakes could hardly be higher.
The country stands at the centre of the world’s emerging critical minerals economy. The Nigerian government can’t feign ignorance of the fact that, when handled transparently, these resources could finance infrastructure, education, healthcare, and industrial development for generations.
In no way would the government claim not knowing that when handled poorly, they risk becoming another chapter in the well-documented “resource curse,” where extraordinary natural wealth coincides with persistent poverty, insecurity and institutional weakness.
The ultimate challenge, therefore, is not simply about mining. It is about governance. It is about whether public institutions possess both the independence and capacity to ensure that natural resources benefit citizens rather than narrow interests. It is about whether conflict zones receive genuine peacebuilding efforts instead of becoming forgotten frontiers. And it is about whether international markets demand accountability with the same enthusiasm they demand raw materials.
None of these questions should be answered through speculation. They require rigorous investigations, forensic financial analysis, satellite imagery, mining license audits, customs records, beneficial ownership disclosures and courageous journalism.
They require governments willing to open their books. They require international cooperation capable of tracing money across borders. Most importantly, they require asking questions that have too often remained unasked.
Perhaps Nigeria’s security crisis is exactly what it appears to be: a tragic convergence of historical grievances, weak institutions, criminality and environmental pressures. Or perhaps, in some places, another layer of economic incentive deserves closer scrutiny.
Until those questions are thoroughly investigated, one possibility will continue to linger. Maybe the world’s attention has been fixed on the blood spilt above ground, while too little attention has been paid to the extraordinary wealth lying beneath it.
Blaise, a journalist and PR professional, writes from Lagos and can be reached via: bl***********@***il.com
Feature/OPED
What Does Nigeria’s $51bn Reserves Milestone Mean if Most New Foreign Money Can Leave Quickly?
Nigeria’s foreign reserves have climbed to about $51 billion, a decade-plus high, according to the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). EBC Financial Group (EBC) notes that this reflects stronger investor confidence, but the second half may show whether it holds, as the build rests on three cyclical drivers: oil earnings, short-term foreign money and a narrowing official-to-street naira gap.
Reserves rose from about $32 billion in April 2024, during a dollar shortage, to about $51 billion now, near the CBN’s target. Much came from two cyclical sources, strong oil earnings and money chasing high-yielding naira assets, so EBC expects the pace to slow or reverse. Fitch Ratings, a major international credit rating agency, expects a marginal decline to about $47 billion by the end of 2026, citing higher spending and external pressures.
David Precious, Senior Market Analyst at EBC Financial Group, said, “Nigeria’s reserve build is real but may not be durable yet, because nearly all of the new money is the kind that can leave quickly. Of the $10.37 billion that came in over the first quarter, the overwhelming majority was short-term portfolio funds rather than long-term investment, so a shift in oil prices, global interest rates or confidence in the naira might pull a large part of it straight back out.”
Most New Money Can Still Leave Quickly
The composition of the foreign inflows explains the caution over how long the build can last. The country attracted $10.37 billion in foreign investment in the first quarter of 2026, up 83.83 per cent year-on-year, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). Of that, $9.86 billion or 95.09 per cent, was portfolio money, largely short-term naira debt such as Treasury bills that investors can sell at the next auction, while foreign direct investment, the long-term kind that builds factories and jobs, was $135.08 million, or 1.30 per cent. Put simply, of each dollar coming in, about 95 cents can leave quickly, and barely one cent stays.
That money supports reserves while it stays. Dollars brought in to buy naira assets add to market supply, letting the CBN hold more reserves and steady the naira. It leaves when conditions change. Nigeria earns most of its export dollars from oil and gas, so lower oil prices mean fewer dollars, and as a member of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), it cannot simply produce more, output capped by quota and reduced by theft and ageing fields. Higher global interest rates draw money toward safer returns abroad, and a weakening naira prompts investors to sell early. When oil fell in 2016 and 2020, foreign investors withdrew and could not convert naira to dollars as supply dried up, leaving the CBN to clear more than $7 billion in trapped obligations into 2024.
The Oil Boost is No Longer Certain
Oil looked like a dependable source of the dollars behind the reserves only months ago. Earlier in 2026, concern over disruption around the Strait of Hormuz lifted crude prices, and stronger receipts flowed in, with crude oil export earnings of $8.11 billion in the first quarter in the CBN’s balance-of-payments data. That support is now easing. The tension has subsided, and Brent traded near $72 on June 29, down about 24 per cent over the month, back to pre-conflict levels. With the price boost gone and output constrained, reserves are more exposed, leaning on non-oil earnings and investor patience rather than oil.
The Naira Still Trades at Two Prices
The naira has traded at two prices, an official rate and a higher parallel-market rate, and closing that gap into one trusted price is what many investors might watch most. Before committing funds, they may want assurance they can convert naira to dollars at a fair rate when they exit, and a wide gap revives the fear of being trapped that lingers from earlier shortages. The gap has narrowed to roughly N20 to N30, with the CBN’s official rate near N1,380 per dollar on June 26 against parallel-market quotes around N1,400. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) 2026 Article IV review urged Nigeria to depend less on this fast-moving portfolio money and to keep phasing out its multiple exchange-rate practices. The CBN’s Foreign Exchange Manual, in force from 1 June, is intended to make the market clearer, though such rules build confidence only once investors can freely trade dollars at the posted rate.
What could Make the Build Durable
A few signs that may show the build turning durable include a smaller gap between the official and street naira rates, more long-term foreign investment, and steadier oil earnings. A gap that stays small, now roughly N20 to N30, may mean investors trust the official rate and no longer need the street market. A clear rise in foreign direct investment, only $135 million last quarter against $9.86 billion of short-term money, might mean lasting capital is replacing funds that can leave at the next auction. Oil earnings that hold up, rather than sliding from the low $70s, should help keep reserves steady, since oil and gas bring in most of Nigeria’s export dollars.
“Reserves built on money chasing high yields can fall as fast as they rose, as they did after the last two oil shocks, when investors left, and the CBN spent years clearing a foreign-exchange backlog,” Precious added. “What holds through a downturn is slower money, direct investment, steady oil and non-oil export earnings and one credible naira rate, and that is the shift Nigeria has yet to make.”
