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Research journalist and Mariner, Mujahid Al-Ibenu, has called for peaceful protest and greater accountability from the Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA) over what he described as prolonged uncertainty surrounding the implementation of new policies affecting Nigerian Mariners, coupled with the reported disruption of officers’ professional examinations.

Al-Ibenu said the situation has created considerable anxiety among cadets, students officers, and serving officers who have invested years of their lives and substantial financial resources in training and professional certification.

He argued that while regulatory reforms are necessary to strengthen Nigeria’s maritime administration and bring its seafarer-training system in line with international standards, such reforms must not leave candidates who entered the system under previously approved arrangements without a clear and equitable transition.

Of particular concern, according to Al-Ibenu, is the position of candidates who enrolled in the Associate Certificate programme previously introduced under the regulatory framework and offered through NIMASA-approved Maritime Training Institutions (MTIs).

He said many of those candidates committed significant financial resources, time and personal sacrifices on the understanding that they were undertaking a recognised programme through institutions approved to provide maritime education and training.

The question now demanding an unequivocal answer, he said, is what becomes of those candidates if the regulatory position on the Associate Certificate programme changes.

‘Candidates did not create the programme themselves. They enrolled in institutions operating within the framework approved or recognised by the maritime administration. If people paid substantial sums of money, left employment, committed years to training and pursued sea service on the basis of that programme, NIMASA has a responsibility to explain clearly what happens to them,’ Al-Ibenu said.

He called on the Agency to publish a definitive position on the Associate Certificate programme and provide a transparent transition pathway for every affected candidate.

According to him, it would be unacceptable for candidates to bear the consequences of a regulatory transition when they entered their programmes in good faith through institutions authorised to conduct maritime training.

Al-Ibenu maintained that regulatory accountability should extend beyond the introduction of new rules.

‘An agency cannot simply introduce a programme, allow approved institutions to operate it, allow candidates to invest their money and years of their lives in it, and then leave those candidates to determine their fate when the regulatory framework changes,’ he said.

He called for NIMASA to disclose the status of candidates who have already completed or are currently undertaking the Associate Certificate programme, including whether their qualifications will remain valid, whether they will be permitted to progress to the next stage of certification, and whether additional bridging requirements will be imposed.

Where additional requirements are necessary, he said, NIMASA should clearly state the legal and regulatory basis for such requirements and provide reasonable transitional arrangements rather than placing the entire burden on candidates.

His concerns come against the backdrop of significant reforms announced by NIMASA to Nigeria’s seafarer education, training, assessment, examination and certification regime.

NIMASA has announced new standards pursuant to the Merchant Shipping (Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers) Regulations, 2025, saying the reforms are intended to strengthen compliance with international maritime standards and improve the global competitiveness of Nigerian seafarers.

The Agency has also announced revised curricula and new academic requirements for prospective officers, including arrangements affecting candidates progressing through nautical science and marine engineering.

Al-Ibenu said the reforms should therefore be accompanied by a comprehensive transition policy that answers the questions confronting people already enrolled in the system.

He said the issue is not whether Nigeria should improve its maritime standards but whether the transition will be administered fairly.

‘International standards are important, but so is institutional responsibility. A marina who entered a programme through an approved institution should not wake up one morning to discover that years of investment have become uncertain,’ he said.

The maritime analyst also expressed concern over what he described as the reported abrupt suspension or disruption of officers’ examinations, saying the matter requires an official explanation from NIMASA.

He urged the Agency to provide candidates with a clear examination calendar and explain the circumstances surrounding any suspension, postponement or alteration of examinations.

He further called for clarification regarding candidates who had already completed the prescribed training and sea-service requirements and were preparing for their professional examinations before any changes were introduced.

For Al-Ibenu, uncertainty surrounding professional examinations can have serious consequences for maritime careers.

Seafarers progressing towards officer certification depend on a predictable system of training, sea service, assessment and examination. Delays can affect employment opportunities, contractual commitments, sea-time progression and the ability of candidates to advance towards higher certificates of competency.

He further warned that prolonged regulatory uncertainty should also be considered from the standpoint of the psychological well-being and morale of Nigerian seafarers.

According to him, a law-abiding citizen who has carefully planned his professional life, invested his resources and followed the established regulatory pathway can become deeply frustrated when the process upon which his future depends remains uncertain for an extended period.

‘As officers, we are trained to operate within established procedures, respect authority and comply with the law. But when a law-abiding person has done everything expected of him and is subsequently left in prolonged uncertainty about his career, the effect on morale should not be underestimated,’ Al-Ibenu said.

He said prolonged frustration, anxiety and uncertainty could contribute to serious psychological distress and, in some cases, mental-health challenges, particularly among young people whose professional identity and economic future are tied closely to their progression within the maritime sector.

He cautioned that such consequences could ultimately create problems beyond the maritime industry if affected individuals lose confidence in legitimate professional pathways.

‘When a right-thinking individual becomes frustrated for too long, there is a possibility of a deviation of interest or a loss of confidence in the system. That can create additional problems for society and, ultimately, for the country. This is why we must maintain the rule of law while ensuring that the system itself gives citizens reason to continue believing in lawful and legitimate processes,’ he said.

Al-Ibenu stressed that his position was not against regulatory reform or Nigeria’s pursuit of international maritime standards.

Rather, he said, the human and psychological effects of regulatory implementation should form part of the consideration whenever major changes are introduced.

He said Nigeria must seek a balance between achieving international standards and protecting the morale, confidence and professional stability of the people expected to operate under those standards.

‘While the new regulations are designed to promote international standards and strengthen our maritime sector, the psychological effect of their implementation should also be put into consideration. We are not regulating machines; we are regulating a profession made up of human beings who have families, responsibilities, aspirations and legitimate expectations for their careers,’ he said.

He therefore called for NIMASA to publish a comprehensive transition framework covering existing students, Associate Certificate candidates, cadets, officers awaiting examinations and other seafarers affected by the regulatory changes.

The framework, he said, should identify which candidates are covered by previous arrangements, who is required to undertake bridging courses, what qualifications remain recognised, and the precise pathway through which affected candidates can continue their professional progression.

Al-Ibenu further called for direct engagement between NIMASA, approved MTIs and representatives of affected candidates.

He said such engagement would help prevent misinformation and allow the Agency to hear directly from the people whose professional futures are being affected by the implementation of its policies.

He stressed that accountability must be measurable.

‘If NIMASA approved or recognised institutions to conduct these programmes, then there must be an institutional record of what candidates were admitted to study, what requirements they were given and what certification pathway they were promised. The regulator should therefore be able to explain, with records and not general statements, what happens next,’ he said.

He also urged approved MTIs to provide candidates with full documentation concerning their programmes, including admission records, course requirements, examination status and any correspondence received from NIMASA regarding the transition.

While advocating peaceful protest if the concerns remain unresolved, Al-Ibenu said any demonstration by officers and ratings must remain lawful, orderly and professionally conducted.

He said the objective should not be confrontation for its own sake but to demand transparency, fairness and institutional accountability.

He called on the Federal Ministry of Marine and Blue Economy, NIMASA, maritime training institutions and other relevant stakeholders to urgently address the concerns.

According to him, Nigeria cannot credibly seek to develop a globally competitive maritime workforce while leaving existing candidates uncertain about whether the qualifications they pursued through approved institutions will be recognised.

He said the responsibility for providing clarity ultimately rests with the regulator.

‘Nigerian seafarers deserve a system in which the rules are clear before they make life-changing investments. Where the rules change, there must be a fair transition. And where an approved programme is discontinued or fundamentally altered, those who relied on it deserve to know exactly what becomes of their investment,’ Al-Ibenu said.

He consequently demanded that NIMASA publicly account for the implementation of its policies, clarify the status of the Associate Certificate programme and affected candidates, publish a transparent examination timetable, and provide a defined transition mechanism for seafarers caught between the previous and current regulatory frameworks.

For Al-Ibenu, the credibility of Nigeria’s maritime regulatory system will ultimately be measured not only by the standards it introduces, but also by how responsibly it treats the people who entered the system in good faith and trusted the regulator to protect the integrity of their professional pathway.

He maintained that the objective should ultimately be to build a regulatory system that commands both international respect and the confidence of Nigerian mariners.

He said Nigeria’s maritime future depends not only on stronger regulations, but on ensuring that those who are expected to uphold those regulations remain confident that the system is fair, predictable and worthy of their trust.

what was the first thing that went through your mind-relief, disbelief, or a sense that the work had finally found its readers?

It was all three and more: relief, because I had been praying for it; disbelief, because the competition was fierce; and a sense that Unbind Me Now had found its readers. The book’s conceptual tapestry placed me as a voice of the people. This line in the title poem is not innocent: our hopes blaze in a soaring bonfire / the poet sits on the tongue of the inferno / a human shield against obstinate fate. It places the poet as conscience, burden-bearer and truth-speaker. That role was foreshadowed in Dispossessed: for i am the missing lobe of poetry’s kolanut / the fearless chest that absorbs the anger of razor blades / i surrender my anvil at the crossroads / and unscrew the cork on my silence. I finished Unbind Me Now in December 2025. On 11 February 2026 the English Department of Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University honoured me as ‘The People’s Poet’-people who had not read the manuscript. Is that how life imitates art?

You were already long listed for Dispossessed in 2022. How does this shortlisting feel different?

Being shortlisted for Africa’s biggest literary prize carries real weight. Out of 223 books, mine was named among the three best poetry collections in Nigeria in 2026. I feel validated, noticed, seen. In the solitary business of writing, being seen is fulfilment. I am grateful to NLNG for that historic chance.

The judges singled out ‘fluid and aesthetically captivating language’ and a movement from dysfunction toward redemption. Does that match how you hear the book?

It does. It means I have found language strong enough to bear my feelings and still range as poetry. Toni Morrison wrote that we die-that may be the meaning of life-but we do language, and that may be the measure of our lives. I do language. When silence falls on all things concerning me, I hope the memory of what I did with language remains. I also deliberately wove hope into the poems. When a reader still meets we are not doomed / to the fate of our fathers / far from darkness / we are light or even the sky must weep / herself empty to summon / the light to birth a rainbow, they see that the book prophesies hope, not only gloom. The judges read that watermark correctly.

Standing beside Ifowodo and Oburumu-two very different poetic temperaments-what does this shortlist say about Nigerian poetry in 2026?

It is a huge honour to stand with Ogaga and Tares. The shortlist speaks to the growth of our poetry: diverse audiences, connected at Nigeria. Great poetry should address the dominant anxieties of its society. We all sought to treat global headaches from a Nigerian perspective.

Africa’s richest literary prize is also a public event. How do you want Unbind Me Now to be talked about if it does not win?

I do not enter a contest expecting to lose. I believe God, who led me this far, will crown the journey. That said, I want the book remembered as a watershed that spoke unwaveringly to the dominant issues of Nigeria in my time-the book whose impact rang loudest in recent memory.

Unbind Me Now

The title is a command. Who is being unbound-the speaker, the country, the reader, or all three?

It is a wake-up call, not a call to arms: a demand for immediate relief for a long-suppressed people. In the world of the book, poet, country, reader and fellow citizens are all in fetters. The poet speaks their most incendiary truths with candour.

Fire runs through the collection as revelation, rebuke and method. When did that metaphor take hold, and did you worry it would consume the quieter poems?

Fire arrived at the conceptual stage. It is physical-churches burnt, sacred objects destroyed, farmers charred in their sleep-and figurative: pent-up emotion and the country’s temperature. I did not worry it would consume quieter poems. Fire is the superstructure. A durable stem can bear extra load.

You have said the book grew out of ‘extreme displeasure’ and a wish to speak for the voiceless, while keeping art from being swallowed by anger. How did you manage that tension?

In a good poem every word must serve a predetermined end. Language, in competent hands, carries both life and death. I managed the tension by taking charge of language and sending it on an errand-fire and water in the same mouth.

Poems that name ‘unknown gunmen,’ burning flags and weaponised faith refuse neutrality. What is the difference between witness and propaganda?

My poetry is the voice of the streets. Those titles came from ordinary conversation; I cleaned and framed them. Who is better placed to write about ‘unknown gunmen’ than a poet who lives in the South-East, where their activities made life unbearable? Poetry must keep its pact with truth. Propaganda is manipulative and aims at a political end. Witnessing records the human condition. The poet of Unbind

Me Now is a witness to a traumatic period, not a propagandist.

The book moves from public blaze to inward reckoning-memory, inheritance, exile, pandemic silence, ecological grief. Was that architecture planned?

Deliberate in parts. Poems on George Floyd, Lekki Tollgate and COVID-19 were written as events happened, then joined a larger tapestry of anguish. Once the mental landscape was mapped, other poems queued behind the central theme.

Dispossessed was organised around innocence, transgression and atonement. Goosebumps was almost entirely about love. What did this third book demand that the first two could not meet?

Dispossessed maps the poet’s evolution. Goosebumps is the in-between experiment with a single theme.

Unbind Me Now continues that evolution, but the poet is no longer starry-eyed. The book demanded trenchant witnessing of a country in extreme distress-a rise to the tongue of the inferno, speaking artistic truth in thunder, lightning and rain.

You released it quietly on Good Friday rather than with a launch. Why that date, and why that restraint?

It was scheduled for Good Friday, then came earlier to meet a deadline. An introductory review had already announced the date. The book was released in silence because of its heavy thematic concerns. Loud celebration did not fit.

Craft and voice

You came to poetry through Gabriel Okara and have long kept company with Okigbo. What do you still steal from them, and where have you had to leave them behind?

Both ignited my imagination. I have drifted from Okara; Okigbo has stayed. Nobody steals from Okigbo comfortably-his genius hunts you. After reading that Ben Obumselu nudged him ‘towards greater clarity,’ I sought Obumselu out and learned the private meanings of some of Okigbo’s most recondite poems. In 2015 I co-founded Return 2 Idoto with Odili Ujubonu, the first poetry festival in the South-East, held at Ojoto by the Idoto River in Okigbo’s honour.

Critics talk about your language as both incantatory and accessible. How conscious are you of writing for the page and for the ear?

I am a journalist, trained to be accessible; a songwriter and speechwriter, trained to be understood; and a poet, charged to sound fresh and carve new idioms. I am bound to all of those things I have become.

Many of these poems feel like sermons that refuse the pulpit. Do you think of yourself as prophet, priest, pilgrim-or just a journalist who learned to sing?

All of those, and more. In a 2019 review of Dispossessed, Reuben Abati titled his piece ‘Here he comes: ‘Prophet, Priest and Pilgrim.” That tag has hung on my neck for seven years.

How do you know when a poem is finished-especially one that is also an accusation?

Is a poem ever finished? Okigbo wrote: And when you have done up my stitches / Wake me up near the altar / And this poem will be finished. Great poems provoke responses across generations. In Dispossessed I answered Eliot’s ‘April is the cruellest month’ with april is not ‘the cruellest month’ / i beg to differ, sir / for the seasons regain their footing with a stab of rain. Eliot started it; I continued it.

Another poet may pick up the thread. That is why it is hard to say a poem is finished.

Has living in Enugu, after years in Lagos newsrooms and government, changed the temperature of the work?

Enugu changed everything. Life is less cruel there; there is room to breathe. I wrote Dispossessed in Awka, Goosebumps and Unbind Me Now in Enugu. In Lagos I had no headroom for meaningful work.

Life before and beside the poems

You were a features writer at ThisDay, pioneer literary editor of Sunday Sun, a banker, a corporate communicator, and a governor’s spokesman. Which jobs most trained the poet, and which most threatened him?

All of them prepared me. Features taught story. Literary editing immersed me in literature as insider-outsider. Banking and corporate communications taught discipline and precision. Serving as a spokesman taught me that words have weight. Poetry needs all of these, in different degrees.

You helped start Chimamanda Adichie’s international creative writing workshops while at Fidelity Bank. What did that collaboration teach you about how literature travels in Nigeria?

It was defining. Serious writing is not merely physical labour. A good book in Nigeria still earns respect.

The idea that Nigerians do not read is a lie. Literature travels far here. Even as a little-known writer, friends and family hold me in high esteem. That is enough.

You have been called ‘the people’s poet.’ Is that a compliment you accept, or a burden?

It is an honour I carry with pride. Few Nigerian poets are celebrated by a university faculty. The English Department at COOU set aside a day for my work and, before the Vice Chancellor and scholars, gave me a plaque titled ‘The People’s Poet.’ A month earlier I had written ‘Voice of the Streets,’ a central poem of the new book. The challenge now is to carry that name with dignity.

Culture-building

Return to Idoto, A Flutter in the Woods, the Things Fall Apart Festival, Udala Nation-you keep building rooms for poetry to live in public. Why is the event as important as the book?

In my culture art is celebratory, and we do not celebrate in private. Events pass the torch. Strangers have known me from Flutter in the Woods; young writers remind me they were at the first Return to Idoto.

Events return attention to the book.

Udala Nation turns poems into songs. What does music give a poem that print cannot, and what does it take away?

Music and poetry are Siamese twins. Evocative, rhythmic poetry is called lyrical; a song rich in image and metaphor is called poetic. Udala Nation joins both so the feeling lives after the beat ends.

The udala tree, in your telling, is innocence and communal sharing. How much of that ethic is still possible in the Nigeria these new poems describe?

Communal sharing is still practised. Visit Igbo villages at Christmas: people reach out with whatever they have. It recalls children under the udala tree-when a fruit falls, it is shared so every playmate tastes it.

Nigeria, memory, the world

Unbind Me Now treats insecurity, political betrayal, racial injustice and ecological collapse as one crisis. Is that a poet’s metaphor or a diagnosis you stand by off the page?

Both. A forest fire does not pick its victims. Tomorrow in this country has rarely been better than yesterday-terror, abduction, fuel prices, economic displacement. How can a poet of conscience be quiet?

As the persona asks in ‘my roof is on fire’: how can i be quite / when my roof erupts in smoke / and vultures hover in the wincing skies?

Ancestral memory and Biafra still surface in your work. What is the risk of returning to those wounds, and of leaving them?

The tortoise travels with its house on its back; I am never without my ancestors. Biafra was prominent in Dispossessed, not directly in Unbind Me Now-where genocide is named, I had the Middle Belt in mind.

The memory should not be erased. Like Holocaust memory, it should warn that war is a road with no clear winner and only heavy losses.

You write of a country under siege and a world unravelling. Where do you still locate hope that is not sentimental?

In unexpected places: the woman walking her daughter to school through flooded Awka; the Benue farmer who still raises a hoe after herdsmen ruined the last harvest; the Middle Belt survivor who finds sleep again. We are stronger than the tragedies inflicted on us.

Silence, in this book, is complicity. As someone who has worked close to power, how do you live with that sentence?

Having written speeches for a governor, I know the cost of silence and of failed language. Words are like eggs: once broken they cannot be stitched perfectly back. A silent leader leaves followers guessing. A silent majority is an acquiescing majority. Democracy abhors silence. We must build a culture that can withstand robust debate.

After the prize

If you win, what changes-practically, and in how you write the next book?

When I win, my universe will be reconfigured. I will welcome the weight of victory and use the platform to work for a better Nigeria. The next book is already in the making; it will still be that book.

If you do not, what remains unfinished in Unbind Me Now that you still need to say?

I have asked God for victory. As a Christian I operate in faith. You do not pray for victory and then rehearse not winning. That would mock God.

What question do you wish interviewers would stop asking Nigerian poets-and what question do you wish they would start with?

There is no question a poet should be saved from. As witnesses to truth and repositories of the people’s wish to be heard, poets must be held to account by journalists on behalf of the people.

stating that its interventions have reached 35,796 people,as the state increases its health allocation to 15% of its 2026 budget

The EU said the interventions also generated 12,264 referrals and helped about 10,000 people access healthcare services free of charge.

The results were presented during a review of the EU-SARAH partnership in Kwara, where discussions focused on sustaining progress through stronger state ownership, financing and coordination.

Speaking at the meeting, the Head of Partnerships at the EU Delegation to Nigeria and ECOWAS, Massimo De Luca, said the visit provided an opportunity to assess progress and better understand how the EU’s wider cooperation with Kwara could respond to the state’s priorities.

‘Part of the objectives of this visit is to understand how we work on the broader partnership between the European Union and Kwara,’ De Luca said.

He noted that EU and EU Member State engagement in Kwara extends beyond health to areas including energy, skills, agriculture, civil society, peace and security. A key focus of the discussion was sustainability, including the level of state financing for health and the release of budgeted funds.

Amina Ahmed El-Imam, Kwara State Commissioner for Health, said the proportion of the state’s budget allocated to health had risen from about 4 per cent to 15 per cent in 2026.

‘Kwara has made consistent progress from about 4 % of the budget and, in 2026, it’s 15% of the budget,’ she said.

While acknowledging that budget releases were not always 100 %, the Commissioner said releases had increased year-on-year over the past seven years. She stressed that the state was working towards partnerships based on mutual contribution rather than long-term dependence on external support.

Responding, De Luca described the state’s approach as encouraging and emphasised the importance of strong systems, accountability and local ownership in sustaining development gains.

‘Thank you so much for this very encouraging vision and account of what you have done,’ he said.

Oluwatosin Fakayode, Director of Public Health at the Kwara State Ministry of Health, said Kwara was increasingly using health data to guide decision-making, including identifying Ilorin and Moro local government areas for particular attention based on their contribution to maternal mortality.

He added that state has also developed a roadmap for transitioning from paper-based to digital health systems.

Fauziyyah Alaaya, representative of adolescents in Kwara and Speaker of the State’s Children’s Parliament, welcomed the inclusion of adolescents and young people in health interventions

Nigeria’s U17 women’s team, the Flamingos, have been crowned champions of the 2026 WAFU-B U17 Girls’ Cup after thrashing Togo 4-0 in the final on Sunday in Yamoussoukro, Côte d’Ivoire.

The Hakeem Busari-led side completed a perfect campaign, winning all five matches, including victories over Ghana and hosts Côte d’Ivoire.

Harmony leads Flamingos to emphatic final victory

Captain Chidi Harmony set the Flamingos on course for the title with a first-half brace, converting two penalties in the 15th and 35th minutes to give Nigeria a 2-0 lead at the break.

Olubebube Umejiaku added a third in the 67th minute before Oluwakemi Adegbuyi completed the emphatic victory with a 90th-minute strike.

The win capped an unbeaten tournament for the Flamingos, who won all five of their matches.

Harmony said the team was proud of its achievement, particularly after overcoming Ghana and the hosts.

‘We are so proud of what we have achieved. It is not easy winning all five matches. Our main achievement is beating Ghana and the hosts, Ivory Coast,’ she said.

Flamingos turn focus to Morocco World Cup

The Flamingos will now turn their attention to preparations for the FIFA U17 Women’s World Cup in Morocco from October 17 to November 8.

Nigeria are drawn in Group B alongside North Korea, Puerto Rico and Poland.

NFF backs Flamingos for global challenge

Emmanuel Ikpeme, acting general secretary of the Nigeria Football Federation (NFF), commended the players and officials for their performance and expressed confidence in their prospects at the global tournament.

‘The Flamingos have done very well and made the nation proud, and I have this faith in the players that they are not done yet. I have confidence in the team to go to Morocco and achieve great things at the FIFA U17 Women’s World Cup that is starting next month,’ Ikpeme said.

He described winning all five matches as a significant achievement and said the WAFU-B tournament provided valuable preparation for the World Cup.

‘It is no mean feat to win five matches out of five in a tournament. That is a distinction. The NFF is appreciative of the WAFU-B headquarters for organising the tournament as a premium preparatory event for the FIFA U17 Women’s World Cup, and I believe the Flamingos have benefitted immensely ahead of the global competition,’ he said.

The victorious 2022 FIFA U17 Women’s World Cup bronze medallists are expected to return to Nigeria on Tuesday.

What holds a continent together when its politics pulls apart? Africa has signed the treaty for a single market of 1.4 billion people. But treaties do not trade. People do. And people trade with those they can reach and those they trust.

That is the real test facing the African Continental Free Trade Area. Its success depends on stable corridors between the continent’s anchor economies, and the most significant of them, between Nigeria and South Africa, has also been the most politically sensitive. Tensions this year drew diplomatic engagement at the ECOWAS and African Union levels, a familiar pattern after similar strains in 2008, 2015 and 2019. Elsewhere, border closures and trade disagreements have shown how quickly politics can slow the movement of goods and people.

Yet beneath the diplomatic weather, a set of private and institutional initiatives is building the integration that summits alone cannot deliver.

The numbers tell part of the story. Bilateral trade between Nigeria and South Africa reached $2.16 billion in early 2026, and non-oil exports grew by over 14 percent year on year, driven by financial services, telecommunications and creative media. These flows were not created by political goodwill, and they have not disappeared in its absence.

Much of that resilience is being built deliberately. In August, the Nigeria-South Africa Chamber of Commerce convened more than 300 senior executives under the theme ‘Building Local Content Together: 25 Years of Shared Growth.’ The panel featured founders of Nigerian firms such as CWG, BlackHouse Media and Seams and Stitches, each of which scaled into a continental enterprise through cross-border partnerships. Modupe Kadri, Chief Financial Officer of MTN Nigeria, captured the thinking: ‘Shared growth is not charity; it is not public relations. It is business logic.’

That logic extends to how Africans see one another. The Media Innovation Programme, a journalism fellowship run by the telecom operator with Pan-Atlantic University, has produced five cohorts, each with a South Africa component built in. This year’s 25 journalists, chosen from more than 4,500 applicants, joined a summit at the University of Johannesburg in early September on media and social cohesion, with a spotlight on Nigeria-South Africa relations.

Why does a journalism fellowship matter to trade? Because perception shapes markets. Professor Sifiso Mnisi of the University of Johannesburg noted that Nigerians and South Africans often form impressions of each other through news, social media and popular culture rather than direct contact. The fellows came away calling for joint investigations and editorial partnerships across African newsrooms, and the model has since gone continental, with a Pan-African edition welcoming 42 journalists and editors from 10 countries.

But a single market cannot run on goodwill alone. It needs connectivity, and the same group is laying foundations here too. It is an owner of the 2Africa subsea cable, a system of over 45,000 kilometres with 180 Tbps of capacity, the highest of any cable serving the continent. Through its infrastructure arm, Bayobab, it manages subsea and terrestrial wholesale capacity, and expects that subsea capacity to double heading into 2030. Every trader who closes a deal by phone, every payment that crosses a border digitally, rides on networks like these.

Physical connectivity matters just as much, and aviation shows the size of the task. At the ACI Africa Regional Conference in Abuja this week, the President of ACI Africa said the continent’s aviation sector requires about $32 billion in investment over the next ten years to close its gap, even as African aviation has grown three times faster than the sector elsewhere in the world. The demand is clearly there. A gap of that size will not be filled by governments alone. It will take private investors, cross-border operators and patient capital to build the routes, terminals and cargo links a single market needs.

Tourism is receiving the same attention. On 2 September, South Africa Tourism Connect brought tourism authorities, South African Airways, the Nigeria-South Africa Chamber of Commerce and trade bodies together at Heritage Place in Lagos, committing jointly to reposition the corridor for leisure, business, cultural and family travel.

Pan-African finance is reinforcing the effort. In May, the AfCFTA Secretariat and Ecobank Group signed an agreement linking the Secretariat’s mandate to Ecobank’s continental network and its $3 billion trade finance commitment, with a focus on small businesses, women-led enterprises and young entrepreneurs. And in September, the Secretariat signed an agreement to develop a $5.17 billion Digital Trade Corridor targeting the fragmented payment and logistics systems that still make it cheaper for some African businesses to trade with Europe than with their neighbours.

Put together, these efforts point to a shift in how African integration happens. Governments set the framework, and the ECOWAS compact signed in Freetown commits member states to rebuilding trust between citizens and public institutions. But the daily work of integration is increasingly done by companies, chambers, universities, newsrooms, networks and airlines that have found practical reasons to keep working together.

That is the quiet power of these initiatives. They do not wait for the next summit. They build relationships and infrastructure that continue regardless of the headlines.

The question for Africa is no longer whether its trade future can survive political tension. It is whether enough bridges, in the air, over the wires and between people, can be built beneath the politics to carry the continent forward. On the evidence so far, the builders are already at work.

Former presidential aide, Okoi Obono-Obla, has hit back at Senate President, Godswill Akpabio, over comments on Cross River State, accusing him of misrepresenting the state’s geographical position and making an unsubstantiated claim about its population.

Obono-Obla, in a statement issued in Abuja on Friday, rejected assertions attributed to Akpabio that Cross River is landlocked, that the Nigeria-Cameroon boundary lies in Akwa Ibom State and that 40 percent of Cross River’s population are people of Akwa Ibom origin.

He argued that the controversy over Cross River’s littoral status should not be confused with the state’s geographical relationship with the sea.

Roots of the dispute

The dispute has its roots in the International Court of Justice’s October 10, 2002 judgment in the Cameroon-Nigeria boundary case, in which the Court ruled that sovereignty over the Bakassi Peninsula lay with Cameroon and ordered Nigeria to withdraw its administration and security forces from territory falling under Cameroonian sovereignty.

Obono-Obla acknowledged that the subsequent legal consequences stripped Cross River of the benefits associated with littoral status, including its claim to 76 offshore oil wells.

The Supreme Court, in the 2012 case between Cross River and the Federal Government and Akwa Ibom, held that Cross River no longer had the seaward boundary necessary to qualify as a littoral state for offshore oil-well attribution.

But Obono-Obla maintained that the legal position does not erase the state’s geographical history.

‘That is a legal fiction, not geographical reality,’ he said, arguing that Bakassi historically formed the southernmost part of Cross River and extended into the Gulf of Guinea.

Land boundary vs maritime boundary

On the Nigeria-Cameroon boundary, Obono-Obla said Akpabio’s reported comments amounted to a conflation of the land boundary with the maritime boundary.

‘The land boundary is in Cross River State,’ he argued, adding that what the courts determined was that the maritime boundary following the loss of Bakassi no longer gave Cross River the littoral status it previously enjoyed.

The ICJ judgment itself distinguishes between the land boundary running to the Bakassi Peninsula and the subsequent maritime delimitation between Nigeria and Cameroon.

Obono-Obla also addressed the appointment of Senator Asuquo Ekpenyong as Chairman of the Senate Committee on the Niger Delta Development Commission, describing the appointment as commendable.

However, he questioned the political significance attached to bringing a Cross River senator to an event while, according to him, simultaneously describing the state as landlocked and non-littoral.

He described that as ‘political tokenism’ and said genuine support for Cross River would involve backing its demands over its maritime status, oil-well interests and the resettlement of displaced Bakassi people.

Population claim challenged

The former presidential aide also took issue with the reported claim that 40 per cent of Cross River’s population are Akwa Ibom people.

He said he was unaware of any empirical basis for the figure from the National Population Commission, National Bureau of Statistics or another credible statistical authority.

Obono-Obla described the assertion as divisive and called for greater sensitivity from political leaders.

The wider Cross River-Akwa Ibom dispute over the 76 offshore oil wells has been litigated for years. In its 2012 judgment, the Supreme Court found that Cross River had ceased to be a littoral state following the implementation of the ICJ judgment and that the disputed offshore wells could not be attributed to the state on that basis.

Obono-Obla, however, is now seeking to reopen the broader political and geographical conversation, insisting that the legal loss of littoral benefits should not be presented as evidence that Cross River is geographically without a coastline.

‘Cross River remains a coastal state in geography, history and in the hearts of its people,’ he said, while acknowledging that the law has, for now, removed the benefits attached to littoral status.

He called for ‘statesmanship and sensitivity’ in the handling of the issue.