Feature/OPED
Niger Delta Region and Report on Premature Rupture of Membranes
By Jerome-Mario Chijioke Utomi
I remember now with nostalgia how about a year ago, precisely on Tuesday, August 10, 2021, Nigeria’s Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, at a function held in Lagos, among other remarks, told the gathering that President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration is determined to see through the completion of all the critical projects that had been embarked upon in the Niger Delta region.
In his words, “We have invested significantly in the Niger Delta as the region that holds the energy resources that have powered our progress for six decades as well as the keys to an emergent gas economy.
“In 2017, following my tour of the Niger Delta, which involved extensive consultations with key stakeholders in the region, the New Vision for the Niger Delta was birthed in response to the various challenges which had been plaguing our people.
“The objective of this New Vision is to ensure that the people of the region benefit maximally from their wealth, through promoting infrastructural developments, environmental remediation and local content development.”
However, even if one is tempted to bank on the above alluring but peripheral promises, despite the fact the federal government is not taking any practical steps that will bring it to fruition after well over one year the promises were made, a peep into a recently released 2022 study report entitled Exposure to oil pollution and maternal outcomes: The Niger Delta prospective cohort study, says something different, freighting and discouraging.
According to this referenced report which was carried out by Dr Onome B Oghenetega at the Babcock University, Ilishan-Remo in collaboration with Professor Michael Okunlola, Professor Godson R E E Ana, Dr Oludare Morhason-Bello and Professor Oladosu Ojengbede, women residing in areas with high exposure to oil pollution in the Niger Delta are more prone to premature rupture of membranes and severe vaginal bleeding after childbirth as compared to women residing in areas with low exposure, making pollution prevention pivotal to achieving maternal death reduction in the region. Women in high-exposure areas of the Niger Delta had a higher incidence of premature rupture of membrane (PROM), caesarean section and severe vaginal bleeding after childbirth compared to women in areas with low exposure to oil pollution’.
The research used data collected from interviewer-administered questionnaires and a review of medical records from April 2018 to April 2019, and examined the effect of maternal exposure to oil pollution on pregnancy outcomes in 1720 pregnant women aged 18–45 years.
Essentially, while this piece thanks and appreciates these researchers for this all-important awareness, the question that is important as the findings itself is; as a nation, what can we make out of this report?
Aside from being perceived as backward and degraded, occasioned by crude oil exploration, exploitation and production, the latest report like similar ones delivered in recent times show that the Niger Delta is not just a region laced with sad commentaries, but remains a geographical location with varying meaning to different people.
To some, it is a region where the communal right to a clean environment and access to a clean water supply is violated. By its admission, the oil industry has abandoned thousands of polluted sites in the region. Aquifiers and other water supply sources which are being adversely affected by industrial or other activities need to be recovered while communities are adequately compensated for their losses.
To others, it symbolizes a location where the government employs a non-participatory approach to development/ broad-based consultative approach that strips the people of their sense of ownership, where the government and other Nigerians have failed to see the problem of the Niger Delta as a national one.
To the rest, it is a zone where fierce war has been raging between ethnic and social forces in Nigeria over the ownership and control of oil resources. And as a direct result, a long dark shadow has been cast on efforts to improve the well-being and economic development of the region’s individuals, peoples, and communities.
To end these ugly narratives in the region and in other parts of the country, the federal government needs to be holistic in its approach by doing two things- placement of strong premium on, and implementation of Nigerians’ right to health and environment.
To explain these propositions beginning with the right to health, there is an urgent imperative for policymakers in the country to start understanding health as a human right. Incorporating this new awareness will create a legal obligation on states to ensure access to timely, acceptable, and affordable health care of appropriate quality as well as to provide for the underlying determinants of health, such as safe and potable water, sanitation, food, housing, health-related information and education, and gender equality.
The federal government must in line with the United Nations advocacies internalize the fact that a rights-based approach to health requires that health policy and programmes must prioritize the needs of those furthest behind first towards greater equity, a principle that has been echoed in the recently adopted 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Universal Health Coverage.
We must develop the mindset to the effect that the right to health must be enjoyed without discrimination on the grounds of age, ethnicity or any other status. Non-discrimination and equality require states to take steps to redress any discriminatory law, practice or policy. Another feature that must be adopted in this regard is meaningful participation. Participation within this context, according to the United Nations (UN), means ensuring that national stakeholders – including non-state actors such as non-governmental organizations – are meaningfully involved in all phases of programming: assessment, analysis, planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation.
On the environment, the Niger Delta experience should be an eye opener for the government to believe that to enjoy human rights; human beings depend on the environment in which they live. A safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment is integral to the full enjoyment of a wide range of human rights, including the rights to life, health, food, water and sanitation. Without a healthy environment, we are unable to fulfil our aspirations.
As globally preached, it calls for the recognition of the links between human rights and the environment. The number and scope of international and domestic laws, judicial decisions, and academic studies on the relationship between human rights and the environment are growing rapidly.
The human rights and the environment mandate, created in March 2012 and extended in 2018, examines the human rights obligations as they relate to a safe, clean, healthy and sustainable environment. It also promotes best practices relating to the use of human rights in environmental policymaking.
Most importantly, we must as a nation incorporate a right to a healthy environment in our constitutions. We must stop paying lip service to these rights.
Utomi Jerome-Mario is the Programme Coordinator (Media and Public Policy), Social and Economic Justice Advocacy (SEJA), a Lagos-based Non-Governmental Organization (NGO). He can be reached via Je*********@***oo.com/08032725374
By Sani Abdulrazak, PhD
The late Sir Ahmadu Bello, the Sardauna of Sokoto and Premier of Northern Nigeria, envisioned that the true measure of a society’s progress lay not just in the roads it built, the markets it opened or the wealth it accumulated, but in the education of its people.
A philosophy it was, born from the conviction that the most enduring obelisk any generation can leave behind is not one hewn in stones, but one etched into the minds of its children. Decades later, that timeless belief still resonates across Northern Nigeria, a reminder that every investment in education is, unquestionably, an investment in today and tomorrow.
Truth is, failure to educate a child is synonymous with condemning the next generation; it is amplifying an already debilitating multidimensional poverty, it is fuelling the flames of insecurity. Governor Uba Sani of Kaduna state shares this belief, and three years later under his watch, the state’s education sector tells a promising story that gives every resident of the state reason to hope…to believe.
A school is indeed more than bricks and mortar; it is a place where the future is quietly assembled. Sadly, countless classrooms across Kaduna reflected neglect rather than hope. Governor Uba Sani’s administration chose to change that narrative. Within three years, 736 new classrooms have been constructed and 2,326 renovated, while 30,742 pupils’ desks and 3,704 teachers’ tables and chairs have been supplied.
The government also completed 62 new secondary schools, with another 50 under construction. Through the School Access Project, between 102 and 104 additional schools are being established so that no child travels more than one kilometre to access education. Furthermore, six science secondary schools that had remained abandoned for over a decade have been completed and reopened by the present administration. Today, they provide quality science education to over 2,000 students.
Rising tuition fees by the previous administration had placed higher education beyond the reach of many families in Kaduna and beyond. The administration responded with a 50 per cent reduction in tuition fees across Kaduna State-owned tertiary institutions, including Kaduna State University and Nuhu Bamalli Polytechnic, reportedly increasing enrolment by over 200%. Kaduna State Government also paid approximately ₦407.94 million, equivalent to 247,235.84 United States dollars, to settle outstanding tuition for Kaduna-sponsored students studying abroad, while investing over ₦1 billion in scholarships, student loans and educational support programmes.
It is indeed true that education is only as strong as its custodians, the teachers. Recognising this, the administration recruited 10,000 teachers and trained more than 33,000 education personnel in modern teaching methods and digital learning. These investments are already yielding results, with students obtaining five credits and above in WAEC, NECO and NABTEB examinations increasing from 54 per cent to 67 per cent.
Nothing illustrates the measure of progress of this administration’s investment in education better than the decline in out-of-school children. Through expanded school access, improved infrastructure, tuition support and enhanced security, the number reportedly fell from about 580,000 to approximately 182,000, giving hundreds of thousands of children another chance at education.
Believing that education must ready young people for employment and enterprise, Kaduna State Government established three Institutes of Vocational Training and Skills Development in Soba, Rigachikun and Samaru Kataf, offering practical skills in ICT, renewable energy, mechatronics, welding, plumbing, fashion design, carpentry and automotive technology. The administration has also advanced inclusion through the nearly completed Special School for Gifted Children and the expansion of the Tsangaya Bilingual Schools Project with specialised teacher training.
Binding these educational reforms together is sustained investment. Between 2024 and 2026, Kaduna consistently allocated between 25 and 26.14 per cent of its annual budget to education, making it the state’s highest-funded sector. More than a budgetary decision, it is a declaration that Kaduna’s future will be built not only with roads and buildings, but with educated minds.
There is an African proverb that says, “The child who is carried on the back today may carry the nation on his shoulders tomorrow.” Make of that what you will, but only education will give the child the shoulders to do so. Generational chapters and eras are defined by battles won or lost, sometimes by monuments raised or conceived.
However, the most discerning write their legacy upon the minds via education, for no monument endures longer than an educated generation. Who’d better write us this chapter than the proverbial Lannister of our time, Governor Uba Sani? A leader elected because the people of Kaduna State knew he would be a reformist, and now he is shifting the tectonic plates of education…of governance in the state.
Even though a lot of work remains unfinished, the road ahead is anything but smooth. What is beyond doubt is the direction the state is heading towards. Should these reforms endure under the SUSTAIN Agenda, Kaduna may one day look back on Uba Sani’s first three years not merely as an era of educational reforms, but as the moment when the state chose to invest in the one sphere that time cannot diminish: the education of its people.
Feature/OPED
How Governor Uba Sani’s Sustain Agenda is Rewriting Kaduna’s Agricultural Metamorphosis
By Sani Abdulrazak, PhD
Governance ascends into telos when the hands that feed the nation work with sustained hope rather than uncertainty. The farmer is indeed relieved when he no longer gauges the farming season through the prism of survival or rising cost of fertiliser, but by the promise of a better harvest and a pathway to prosperity. Truth is, rural communities are only fundamentally satisfied when their fertile lands marry deliberate government intervention. This government intervention in agriculture is not in mere promises, speeches, or ceremonies, but in flourishing fields, fuller warehouses and improved livelihoods. At the very core of Governor Uba Sani’s SUSTAIN agenda is strengthening the bedrock upon which food security and economic prosperity are built: agriculture. His approach has been less of bombast and more of stewardship, allowing the sector to emerge from years of uncertainty into one of resurgence.
The agricultural sector of Kaduna State over the past three years reveals a government that has chosen investment over rhetoric. Pinpointing agriculture as the oxygen of the state’s economy, the administration has committed unprecedented resources to this very pertinent sector. The agricultural budget rose from barely ₦1.48 billion in 2023 to ₦74.2 billion in 2025, before exceeding ₦100 billion in the 2026 budget, making Kaduna one of the few states committing over 10 per cent of its annual expenditure to agriculture. These allocations represent an explicit declaration that meaningful agricultural transformation begins with deliberate investment. They equally reflect the prudence and resolve to position Kaduna not merely as a producer of crops but as an agricultural colossus. What once appeared a distant aspiration is gradually taking the shape of a tangible renaissance, built not on ephemeral promises but on carefully hewn policies and enduring commitments.
The most conspicuous manifestation of this administration’s intervention has been its direct support for farmers. Admittedly, farming has become increasingly expensive across the country lately, yet Kaduna state responded with one of the largest agricultural support programmes by distributing 15,000 metric tonnes of fertiliser, equivalent to about 500 truckloads, free of charge to over 120,000 farmers across the 23 local government areas. Through the “Tallafin Noma programme”, an additional 69,000 smallholder farmers received improved maize seeds and agrochemicals to increase productivity. These interventions have reduced production costs for thousands of farming households while strengthening food production at a time when food security remains a national concern. Such interventions are not mere statistics; they are a bulwark against rural poverty, a catalyst for productivity and a harbinger of renewed confidence. For many farmers, government support has become the linchpin upon which an abundant harvest now rests.
Governor Uba Sani understands that the true promise of modern agriculture lies not only in cultivation but also in the value created after the harvest. The commencement of the Kaduna Special Agro-Industrial Processing Zone marks an important shift from exporting raw produce to processing agricultural commodities within the state. Complementing this is the construction of Northern Nigeria’s first Agricultural Quality Assurance Centre, designed to certify agricultural produce for local and international markets. Together, these initiatives promise to reduce post-harvest losses, attract private investment, create employment opportunities and improve the competitiveness of Kaduna’s agricultural products beyond Nigeria’s borders. They equally represent a conscious effort to build an agricultural ecosystem, a lasting edifice of productivity whose impact will reverberate far beyond the present generation. The vision is transformative as it is audacious, replacing dependence with self-sufficiency and creating a confluence where farming, industry and commerce intersect.
Mechanisation and rural agricultural support have also received renewed focus. The procurement of tractors and farm implements, the provision of irrigation pumps, power tillers, fertilisers, and crop protection chemicals to farmer cooperatives, alongside continued investment in rural and farm-to-market roads, shows an understanding that productivity improves when farmers are supported with the right tools and infrastructure. Easier access to markets not only reduces transportation costs but also minimises post-harvest losses, ensuring that farmers reap greater value from their labour. These investments have become the fulcrum upon which rural prosperity increasingly turns, replacing archaic practices with innovative solutions and galvanising communities to embrace modern agriculture. They stand as an obelisk of thoughtful governance, a testament to the belief that development flourishes where opportunity is deliberately cultivated.
Superlatives are in short supply when describing Governor Uba Sani’s three years in office, and even more so when one attempts to capture the magnitude of his agricultural revolution. Among the promises he made was to revive agriculture as the engine of Kaduna’s economy, and, as always, he has kept his promise. We’ve always known he would; the challenges, though, are far from over, but every meaningful reform must navigate its own labyrinth of challenges. Yet the administration’s trajectory remains steadfast, its achievements too palpable to dismiss even to the staunch critics. It would be germane to etch in our minds that history, that impartial arbiter of leadership, may ultimately remember this administration as one that rekindled the state’s agricultural zenith and restored dignity to farming for generations to come.
Sani Abdulrazak, PhD, is a writer, researcher and public affairs analyst based in Zaria, Kaduna State
Feature/OPED
The Role of the Stock Market in Nation Building: Imperatives for an Inclusive Capital Economy
By Adedapo Adesanya
Nigeria’s stock market has crossed a milestone that demands attention. With total market capitalisation reaching N151.327 trillion as at June 2026, the Nigerian Exchange Limited (NGX) has not only consolidated its position as Africa’s second-largest bourse, but it has also demonstrated something more consequential: that domestic capital, when properly mobilised, is a credible engine of national development.
Nation building is rarely a singular act. It accumulates through institutions that function, capital that circulates, and citizens who believe the system works for them. Few institutions make that case as visibly as a thriving stock exchange. The market is no longer just a barometer of investor sentiment. It is an active participant in Nigeria’s development.
The quality of any capital market ultimately reflects the quality of the companies it hosts. Markets create national wealth most effectively when they provide long-term capital to productive enterprises that expand industrial capacity, create jobs, deepen local supply chains and generate enduring shareholder value.
Earlier in the year, President Bola Tinubu had commended the NGX Group, corporate Nigeria, market operators and investors for propelling NGX past the historic N100trn market capitalisation mark, describing the milestone as a strong indicator of renewed investor confidence and economic recovery.
He said: “The Nigerian capital market stands at the heart of our ambition to build a one-trillion-dollar economy. It is the engine through which long-term finance must be mobilised to power critical sectors – from infrastructure to housing, technology, energy and industrial growth.”
Nigeria has increasingly demonstrated this through home-grown corporate champions such as the Dangote Group, whose decades-long investments across strategic sectors illustrate how patient enterprise-building and capital market development can reinforce one another. Strong companies strengthen strong markets, and strong markets, in turn, provide the capital needed to build even stronger companies.
But numbers, however impressive, are only part of the story. The more compelling narrative lies in who is now participating and how. The explosion in retail participation over the past two years is inseparable from digital infrastructure.
Data by the Central Securities Clearing System (CSCS) shows 151,749 new brokerage accounts were opened in just the first five months of 2025. Between 2019 and November 2025, over 2.1 million new retail investment accounts were established, the strongest growth in seven years. This is not incidental. It is the direct result of deliberate technological positioning by market operators and regulators, and one of the more underappreciated contributions to national economic inclusion, the companies on the stock market.
Nigeria’s investing demographic is shifting, and the market must shift with it. A largely young, mobile-first population does not respond to traditional channels. They discover financial products on social media, transact via apps, and make decisions based on peer influence as much as professional advice. The 56 per cent year-on-year increase in retail equity investment to N981 billion in the first seven months of 2025 reflects this generational pivot.
Yet gaps remain. Women, smallholder entrepreneurs and low-income earners across tier-2 and tier-3 cities are underrepresented. Instruments like the Federal Government Savings Bond, accessible from as little as N5,000, demonstrate that appetite exists beyond the traditional investor class. The challenge now is sustained financial literacy, culturally relevant messaging, and last-mile digital infrastructure that meets these segments where they are. Broadening that base is not just good market development; it is nation-building in its most practical form.
Sustaining confidence in the capital market requires a functioning compact between four critical actors. Regulators must maintain the credibility they have worked on to rebuild. Reforms, including foreign exchange unification, banking recapitalisation, and NGX demutualisation, have restored institutional trust. That momentum cannot be squandered.
Financial institutions must do more than offer products; they must offer pathways. Education, simplified onboarding, and genuinely accessible advisory services are not optional add-ons. They are the infrastructure of a participatory economy.
Listed companies have a responsibility that extends beyond quarterly earnings. They must consistently demonstrate transparency, sound corporate governance, operational excellence and long-term value creation. Companies that invest patiently in productive assets while rewarding shareholders over time help deepen confidence in the market and encourage wider public participation. The experience of leading Nigerian enterprises, including companies within the Dangote Group, shows that sustained investment in the real economy can simultaneously create industrial capacity, support national development and deliver enduring value to investors.
At $117 billion, NGX’s capitalisation represents only about 35 per cent of GDP. Mature markets typically exceed 100 per cent. Closing that gap will require more quality listings, particularly from the productive sectors of the economy, where long-term capital can translate into long-term national growth.
Finally, technology providers must treat financial inclusion as a design constraint, not an afterthought. Connectivity gaps, low digital literacy, and transactional friction are not user problems. They are product problems.
Domestic investors now account for 77.79 per cent of total market activity, a structural shift that makes the market less exposed to global sentiment swings and more reflective of domestic economic conviction. That is a nation beginning to fund its own future.
As Nigeria seeks to build a more inclusive capital economy, the objective should not simply be to increase the number of investors. It should be to increase the number of successful Nigerian businesses capable of attracting long-term investment. Every globally competitive indigenous company that chooses transparency, governance and broad-based ownership strengthens both the capital market and the country’s economic resilience. The relationship is mutually reinforcing: vibrant companies deepen the market, while a vibrant market empowers the next generation of national champions.
The foundation exists. What comes next depends on whether all stakeholders can sustain the coordination that has made this growth possible and go further. A participatory capital economy is not an aspirational language. In Nigeria today, it is an unfinished project moving steadily in the right direction.
