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Governor Sheriff Oborevwori of Delta State has approved a new salary structure for academic staff of the four state-owned universities effective from August 2026, while that of non-academic staff and other tertiary institutions would take effect from September.

Governor Oborevwori stated this in Asaba while speaking at the swearing-in of Emasogbe Oghene, the newly appointed Auditor-General of the State, and the inauguration of the Governing Councils of the University of Delta, Agbor; Dennis Osadebay University, Asaba; and Southern Delta University, Ozoro.

He said the four state-owned universities now offer professional courses including medicine, law, nursing and accounting, adding that student enrolment had risen from about 50,000 in 2023 to more than 100,000 in 2026. The enrolment figure has also been reported by the state government in recent education-sector briefings.

He further noted that the academic calendar of the universities had not been disrupted by staff strikes or student unrest in 17 years, describing the development as evidence of the state government’s commitment to stable academic activities.

He described the State as an emerging education hub in Nigeria, saying his administration is committed to repositioning the state-owned universities as centres of excellence and charged the newly inaugurated councils to pursue policies that would strengthen corporate governance, improve institutional efficiency and position the universities for sustainable growth.

He said the Councils, as the highest policy-making bodies of the institutions, must ensure regular meetings, collective responsibility, transparency and accountability, while ensuring that the universities operate strictly in accordance with their enabling laws.

Governor Oborevwori also tasked the Councils to maintain zero tolerance for sexual harassment, examination malpractice, cultism, favouritism and corruption, urging them to apply disciplinary measures whenever rules were breached.

Saying that the State Government would continue to support tertiary education within the limits of available resources, he noted; ‘It is unrealistic and unsustainable for a university to rely solely on government funding’.

While urging the Councils to devote substantial time and resources to marketing their institutions and attracting private-sector investments, he said his administration had continued to invest heavily in infrastructure and staff welfare. He disclosed that he had approved the construction of two hostels for each of the nine state-owned tertiary institutions, with each hostel designed to accommodate 480 students.

The governor charged the councils to build on the progress recorded and make the institutions more competitive nationally and internationally.

He charged the new Auditor-General of Delta State, Emasogbe Matthew Oghene to discharge his duties with transparency, courage, professionalism and fairness, warning against political witch-hunting and deliberate cover-up.

Responding on behalf of the appointees, Patrick Muoboghare, the Pro-Chancellor and Chairman of the Governing Council of Dennis Osadebay University, thanked Governor Oborevwori for appointing him and other members of the council.

Muoboghare called for the establishment of a Higher Education Endowment Fund to provide sustainable funding for tertiary institutions to enable them to compete favourably with their counterparts globally.

He challenged eminent Deltans and Nigerians to partner with government by investing in student hostels, staff accommodation, lecture halls and faculty buildings, stressing that government alone could not provide all the infrastructure required to develop the universities.

The newly inaugurated councils comprise distinguished academics, professionals and public servants. Victor Peretomode chairs the University of Delta Governing Council, Patrick Muoboghare chairs that of Dennis Osadebay University, while Godson Echegile chairs the Southern Delta University council. The three councils had been formally constituted by the state government in August.

Nigeria’s planned 90,000-kilometre national fibre network may expand the country’s digital backbone, but stakeholders are increasingly confronting a harder question: how to turn the infrastructure into meaningful connectivity for millions of Nigerians still offline.

More than 23 million Nigerians remain without meaningful connectivity, according to industry estimates.

The scale of the gap is even larger under the Federal Government’s Project BRIDGE assessment, which has identified more than 33 million Nigerians as offline. Bosun Tijani, minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy has separately said Nigeria is seeking to connect about 40 million people without internet access.

The varying estimates point to a broader problem: Nigeria’s connectivity challenge is no longer simply about laying fibre. It is about getting networks, devices, electricity, affordability and digital services to people in communities that remain commercially difficult to serve.

Tijani reinforced that distinction at the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

‘What we do not have is meaningful connectivity, the sort of connectivity that you truly need to be able to benefit from the sort of innovation that we’re seeing,’ he said.

His comment comes as the Federal Government accelerates Project BRIDGE, a $2 billion programme that will deploy 90,000 kilometres of fibre and expand Nigeria’s national backbone to more than 120,000 kilometres.

The government now expects the project, initially planned for five years, to be completed within three years. Tijani said the fibre network is central to Nigeria’s plan to reach people without internet access.

Fibre is only the first layer

The challenge facing Nigeria is that a national fibre backbone does not automatically put an internet connection into a rural household.

Project BRIDGE is expected to provide open-access infrastructure that telecom operators and internet service providers can use to extend their networks. But additional investment will still be required to connect communities and end users.

This is why the Federal Government is pursuing other connectivity programmes alongside BRIDGE.

The Nigeria Universal Communication Access Project is designed to deploy about 3,700 telecommunications sites in underserved and unserved communities. Tijani said at least 200 of the sites are expected to be active before December, with each tower serving communities of between 5,000 and 10,000 people.

The government is also looking to satellite connectivity for locations where fibre and terrestrial towers cannot reach.

The combination of fibre, towers and satellite infrastructure suggests that closing Nigeria’s connectivity gap will require several technologies rather than a single nationwide network.

Quality remains a problem

The urgency is also reflected in the quality of existing connections. NCC industry statistics show that 2G still accounted for 36.54 percent of mobile-generation market share in July 2026, even as 4G and 5G adoption increases in urban areas.

This highlights the difference between being technically covered by a mobile network and having the kind of high-capacity connection needed for modern digital services.

For rural communities, the barriers extend beyond network infrastructure. Weak electricity supply, low purchasing power, limited access to smartphones and the cost of deploying and maintaining networks can all affect whether connectivity becomes commercially viable.

That means the success of Project BRIDGE cannot ultimately be measured only in kilometres of fibre laid. Its bigger test will be how many additional Nigerians gain reliable, affordable and useful access to the internet.

The Rural Connectivity Summit 2.0 is expected to focus precisely on that gap as Nigeria moves from building its digital backbone to connecting the people who have yet to benefit from it.

Despite growing doubts over the conduct of elections in Rivers State, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has assured opposition political parties in the state of free, fair and credible polls in 2027.

Opposition parties in the State, under the aegis of the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC), had expressed fears over possible electoral violence, alleged political intimidation and INEC’s impartial conduct of the 2027 general elections.

INEC held a strategic engagement with IPAC on Monday in a bid to address these issues, and as part of efforts to promote a peaceful, transparent and credible electoral process ahead of the 2027 elections.

The meeting brought together INEC officials and leaders of various political parties in the State and focused on the conduct of the elections and the need for greater collaboration among stakeholders.

Johnson Alalibo Sinikiem, INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner, Rivers State, assured the parties that the Commission would conduct elections that are free and fair.

He was responding to concerns raised by political parties, particularly over the use of Local Government Area headquarters, as colation centres during elections.

He said, ‘In all election circles, we expect a better one. Not only in Nigeria, even in other climes of the world. Even we as election managers, we are expecting better elections.

‘All the times it has been free and fair. But it depends on the operators and the people in the field. I always say it: those people in the field, once they play by the rules, we don’t have anything to worry about. For us, we assure you that the commission, from headquarters to the state and to the local government will be free to all political parties,’ he said.

Sinikiem explained that Council headquarters are secured and established places, adding that ‘during colation, we need appropriate places for both accommodation and the security of men and materials and the officers that are doing colation’.

Meanwhile, the State chapter of the Inter-Party Advisory Council has raised concern over what it described as a series of negative political developments in the State.

Ben Ogbobula, IPAC State Secretary and Chairman of the Zenith Labour Party, advised INEC to carefully consider concerns raised by political parties and maintain neutrality in the discharge of its responsibilities.

He said, ‘IPAC is ready for elections. We also told them to be mindful of the colation centres, that other political parties are not happy with what the ruling party is doing. So we urged INEC, to be observant and not to be partial, but to ensure that what is meant for Mr A is also good for Mr B. So that they play a neutral ground in these forthcoming elections.

‘Especially now that a lot of political parties like the African Democratic Congress (ADC) Some days ago, some of its members were arrested for unlawful gathering, though this is election period. People are supposed to gather,’ he said.

Ogbobula alleged that the ruling party in the State has been sending people to burn the offices of opposition political parties, to disorganise their meetings and warned that no political party should be intimidated.

‘So, they should allow people to campaign and sell their manifestos to the people’ he urged.