Category: Business Day

A new security report from the SBM Intelligence has identified several communities and corrridors across Nigeria, where there is an elevated risk of attacks, reprisals, kidnappings, gang violence and politically motivated clashes in the coming weeks.

The reports, West Africa Security and Political Economy, gave a summary of violent incidents across Nigeria from 7th to 13th August 2026, and highlighted specific locations where unresolved grievances, recent attacks, the activities of armed groups and political tensions could trigger further violence.

Based on the reports, here are key areas to watch out in the coming weeks.

Plateau state

Mangu Local Government Area remains a significant flashpoint following renewed clashes between the Mwaghavul community and Fulani residents at Jwak Maitumbi.

SBM analysts said in the report, ‘Although troops have restored a fragile calm, the likelihood of further reprisals remains moderately high given that the causative factors remain unresolved, and the recent violence has only added fresh grievances on both sides.’

The analysts warned that the next attack could be a reprisal by the Mwaghavul community, noting that similar retaliatory attacks have occurred within two weeks of previous incidents.

Several communities in Riyom, including Gwa-Wereng Rim, Kyeng, Dorong and Jol, are also expected to remain vulnerable to attacks targeting farmers and reprisals by vigilante groups.

SBM analysts said in the report, ‘Through August and into September 2026, Riyom LGA will likely see continued attacks concentrated along the Jol-Sho road corridor and the farmlands surrounding Gwa-Wereng Rim, Kyeng, Dorong, and Jol via ambushes targeting farmers, reprisal attacks from vigilante groups, and cattle rustling operations.’

The report also identified the Jol-Sho road as a high-risk route and warned that night-time attacks could further restrict commercial and livelihood activities.

Niger State

The major transport corridor linking Kainji, Ibbi, Zurguma and Mokwa in Niger State is another area of concern, particularly for commercial road users.

SBM analysts said in the report, ‘Over the next week, save for a stable, short term security deployment, the current level of threat to logistics on the road is likely to remain high given that, bandits are said to carry out operations on the road which has seen transport unions suspended services on the road due to the escalating attacks.’

The assessment follows an attack on the route in which a passenger was killed and others abducted.

Borno state

Gwoza faces a potentially deceptive period of calm following military operations against ISWAP around the Yuwe and Sabil Huda enclaves. While the military action may temporarily disrupt the group, SBM warned that the militants could respond with asymmetric attacks.

SBM analysts said in the report, ‘For the civilians in Gwoza, this will likely translate to a short-term, fragile lull in direct attacks. However, this is less likely a sign of defeat and highly likely a precursor to a brutal reprisal.’

The report also said ISWAP could shift its focus towards soft targets and military outposts as it attempts to demonstrate that it retains operational capacity.

Adamawa state

The Shilla gang remains a concern for commuters and residents in Yola, particularly in Yola North and Yola Town. Following a reported knife-point robbery of a nine-year-old boy in Jimeta, SBM analysts called for increased vigilance among market goers around Yola North (Jimeta) and Yola Town in the new week.

Kebbi State

Wasagu remains one of the key areas to watch following a bandit attack on farmers that killed one person and abducted four others. The security concern extends beyond individual attacks to the wider agricultural economy, with the report warning that repeated violence could cause farmers to abandon their land.

‘The killing and abduction will likely paralyse farming activities in Wasagu for the coming month, as many farmers may abandon the community and their farms and move into more secure, urban areas such as the state capital’ the report said.

The Dandi area also remains vulnerable following a foiled Lakurawa attack on Ugwan Hassan and a broader pattern of cross-border militant activity.

‘In Dandi Lakurawa will moderately likely attempt another attack, targeting a different vulnerable community like Malan Yaro and Gebe because like other armed groups, it relies on a cycle of intimidation and cannot afford to appear weak’, SBM analysts stated.

The assessment suggests that the successful repulsion of the group may not end the threat but could instead encourage another attempt against a less-protected community.

Sokoto state

Goronyo is another major kidnapping hotspot to watch, following a mass abduction involving armed men moving through communities on motorcycles.

SBM analysts said in the report, ‘The mass abduction in Goronyo, Sokoto, involving scores of bandits on motorcycles moving from house to house, is a classic example of the large-scale, industrialised abduction that now defines the crisis and this is likely to continue at current pace with a potential to worsen in a few weeks given the lack of accountability that constitutes security operations in the area.’

The report said the wider security situation in the LGA is likely to remain elevated unless a more mobile military unit is deployed.

Anambra state

Anambra’s commercial centres and wealthy agrarian communities face a different form of security threat: targeted kidnappings of wealthy individuals and business figures.

SBM analysts said in the report, ‘Over the next month, Anambra State, particularly high-density commercial centres and wealthy agrarian enclaves across Aguata, Nnewi, and Awka LGAs, is are moderately likely to experience a heightened risk of targeted surveillance and soft-target abductions directed at prominent business figures.’

The analysts linked the heightened risk to the emergence of high-value kidnapping as a lucrative model for criminal gangs in the South East.

Rivers state

Ignatius Ajuru University of Education and Rumuolumeni, Rivers State

The area around Ignatius Ajuru University of Education in Rumuolumeni, near Port Harcourt, is another hotspot to watch following a deadly confrontation between rival cult groups.

SBM analysts said in the report, ‘Over the next two weeks, the Ignatius Ajuru University of Education campus and the surrounding Rumuolumeni community are likely to experience targeted reprisal attacks that may cause a short term campus closure.’

The assessment follows a clash during the university’s Students’ Union Government Week celebrations that left two people dead.

Osun state

Political violence remains the dominant security concern in the South West assessment, particularly around Ilesa East and West, where violence was recorded ahead of the August 15 governorship election. The analysts predicted more violent incidents to follow, given the patten of pre-electionn day violence.

Osogbo, the state capital, is also identified as a potential flashpoint because of its political importance and the concentration of political actors and supporters during the election.

The two Ede LGAs are similarly flagged as areas where political tensions could translate into violence around voting and the immediate post-election period. The report says these areas are among those ‘highly likely to experience localised outbreaks of violent clashes, targeted voter intimidation, and post-election rioting’, according to SBM analysts.

Ife Central completes the cluster of South West hotspots identified by SBM Intelligence in its assessment of political violence. The report places parts of Ife Central alongside Ilesa, Osogbo and Ede North and South as historically volatile flashpoints where political competition could translate into violence, particularly around election-related activities.

For the coming weeks, SBM’s report warnings point to a common pattern: recent attacks are not necessarily isolated incidents but could become triggers for retaliation, copycat attacks or renewed violence in areas where the underlying causes remain unresolved.

The Osun State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has stated that the leadership of the party is currently studying the results of the just-concluded governorship election in each of the 332 wards across the state with a view to exploring further the allowed constitutional window of opportunity in this regard.

The party, in a statement made available to journalists on Monday in Osogbo by its Director of Media and Information, Kola Olabisi, said, ‘We are not unaware of the fact that an election is a process which begins at the registration of the voters through the primary election to the election proper which extends to the Tribunal, the Appeal Court and terminates at the Supreme Court.’

According to him, ‘an election cannot be said to have been concluded without having explored all these constitutionally allowed legal opportunities to correct anomalies observed in the process of the election as enshrined in the Electoral Act 2026 as amended.’

Olabisi said further, ‘We commend the steadfastness, sagacity and loyalty of the numerous members and supporters of our party for their contributions in getting to this juncture in the political history of the state.

‘We make it bold to state categorically that as a progressive party which is founded on the unalloyed principle of the rule of law, fairness and justice, we shall not hesitate without further delay to explore the window allowed by the extant Electoral Act after the due consultation with the team of our lawyers based on their professional advice.

‘The new development is a beauty of democracy with reference to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)’s declared governorship election results in the state, which would not propel us to deviate from embracing the culture of the rule of law.

‘As a result of the foregoing, we are imploring our ever loyal members and supporters to remain cool and calm while they carry on with their businesses and refuse to respond to any provocative action or inaction from any of the members of the ruling party across the state.

‘It is necessary to assure our members and supporters not to despair about the current situation and have it in mind that it is not over until it is over.

‘While we are appealing to the Nigeria Police Force to come to the aid and rescue of our members and supporters who are being needlessly molested by the ruling party, we are assuring them that we won’t have any cause or reason to abandon them.

‘The current situation in the political history of the state is a passing phase which will soon become part of history as justice shall be done accordingly.’

The Revenue Mobilisation, Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) is set to introduce a public revenue allocation dashboard and deepen its engagement with the media as part of a four-year institutional reform aimed at improving transparency in Nigeria’s fiscal governance.

Mohammed Bello Shehu, chairman of the commission, said the initiative would move RMAFC from what he described as ‘quiet constitutional oversight’ to more visible institutional leadership, with the commission providing Nigerians with clearer information on how revenues accruing to the Federation are monitored and distributed.

Speaking at a breakfast session with members of the Guild of Editors in Lagos on Saturday, during the launch of the commission’s Strategic Communications and Institutional Reform Initiative, Shehu said RMAFC would modernise its digital platforms and introduce accessible revenue allocation dashboards to enable Nigerians better understand how resources are distributed among the Federal, state and local governments.

He said the reform was necessary at a time of revenue volatility, growing public demand for accountability and increasing pressure from states for fairness and predictability in revenue allocation.

‘Transparency must not only be practiced, it must also be communicated clearly,’ he said.

The chairman said the initiative, which forms part of the commission’s Strategic Communications Blueprint 2026-2030, would also institutionalise quarterly media briefings, policy explainers and proactive engagement with journalists.

According to him, RMAFC’s role is often misunderstood because of the technical nature of its constitutional responsibilities, despite the direct impact of its work on the finances of all three tiers of government.

The commission is constitutionally responsible for monitoring revenue accruals into the Federation Account, advising on revenue allocation formulas and overseeing remuneration for public office holders.

‘Every month, as revenues are shared among the Federal, State, and Local Governments, the work of this Commission directly influences national stability, development equity, and intergovernmental harmony,’ Shehu said.

Under the reform, RMAFC will focus on five areas: institutional clarity, transparency through technology, structured media engagement, thought leadership in fiscal federalism, and internal alignment and professional excellence.

The chairman said the commission would seek to position itself more prominently in national discussions on revenue diversification, revenue allocation reform and remuneration governance.

He, however, stressed that the increased visibility would not compromise the commission’s constitutional neutrality.

He said communications from the commission would remain anchored on the Constitution and its statutory mandate, adding that RMAFC’s loyalty was to the federation rather than partisan interests.

The chairman said the long-term objective was to create a fiscal governance system in which every tier of government and the wider public could understand not only what it receives from the Federation Account, but also why it receives it.

‘We move from quiet constitutional oversight to visible institutional leadership, from technical obscurity to transparent clarity, from reactive communication to strategic engagement,’ he said.

He added that the reform was not about improving the commission’s image but about strengthening its responsibility to ensure that revenues due to the Federation were properly monitored, fairly allocated and transparently accounted for.

Lagos and Nairobi are both major centres of Africa’s startup economy, but they are building different parts of the continent’s digital future.

In Lagos, founders often start with what is missing, which could be payments that need better infrastructure, fragmented commerce systems, difficult logistics and unreliable services. In Nairobi, entrepreneurs are more likely to start with what already works and build new products on top of it.

That difference is creating a startup gap between two of Africa’s most important technology hubs.

Nnaemeka Clinton, chief executive officer of Spark Africa, said the difference became clear after two years of speaking with founders across the continent.

‘The founders I meet in Nairobi think completely differently from the ones I meet in Lagos and I don’t mean ambition or talent. I mean the actual shape of the problems they choose to solve,’ Clinton averred.

His observation is less about which city has better entrepreneurs and more about the infrastructure beneath them.

Kenya’s M-Pesa, launched by Safaricom in 2007, helped create a widely used digital-money system that became a platform for other financial and commercial services. Once that foundation was in place, entrepreneurs could focus on lending, merchant tools, cross-border commerce and other businesses built around digital payments.

Nigeria followed a different path. Its large consumer market and gaps in financial and physical infrastructure created opportunities for companies to build payment links, agent networks, merchant systems and other infrastructure before moving into higher-value services.

The result is two ecosystems operating at different points on the same technology curve.

‘Lagos founders are solving 2015 Nairobi problems with better technology. Nairobi founders are building 2027 products on top of infrastructure Lagos founders are still laying down. But they are barely in the same rooms,’ Clinton said.

Two ecosystems, different problems

The difference is also visible in funding. Nigeria recorded 102 startup deals in 2025, the highest number among African markets tracked by Partech, while Kenya raised $1.04 billion, the largest amount on the continent that year. Kenya recorded 91 deals.

The figures show the strength of both ecosystems, but they also underline that startup activity is not developing in exactly the same way.

Nigeria has remained heavily associated with fintech and large-scale digital financial services. Kenya has developed a wider mix of businesses around mobile money, including digital credit, commerce, agriculture and climate technology.

That does not mean every Lagos startup is building infrastructure or every Nairobi company is building applications. The distinction is about the underlying market conditions that influence where founders see the biggest opportunities.

A Lagos entrepreneur confronting a fragmented system may need to build the missing bridge before another company can cross it. A Nairobi entrepreneur may be able to assume that the bridge already exists. That difference can affect everything from product design and fundraising to expansion strategy.

The cost of staying in separate rooms

Jeffrey Otonnah, a digital marketing and online visibility consultant, said Africa’s bigger opportunity may be in connecting ecosystems that are developing at different stages.

‘I think one of Africa’s biggest opportunities is not simply building more companies, but connecting the ecosystems that are developing at different stages,’ Otonnah said.

A founder exposed to both cities can see opportunities that may be invisible to someone operating in only one market, he said.

‘A founder who understands the realities of Lagos and Nairobi can see opportunities that may be invisible to someone operating entirely within one ecosystem. Sometimes the advantage isn’t having better technology. It is having a wider perspective of the problem,’ Otonnah explained.

That wider view could become more valuable as African startups look beyond their home markets.

A product developed for Kenya’s mobile-money environment may need to be redesigned for Nigeria. Conversely, a technology developed to solve a difficult infrastructure problem in Lagos could be relevant in other African markets facing similar constraints. The opportunity lies in understanding the difference rather than ignoring it.

Chirag Maurya, founder and chief executive officer of CSP Ventures Limited, said founders can become too focused on their immediate markets.

‘I have also interacted with multiple founders that greatly build while isolated to their region alone under the illusion that if they are building for that region they should only focus on that,’ Maurya said.

He believes founders should continuously study other markets to make their products stronger. ‘Keeping our eyes open and scanning multiple regions might just give you the solution to help make your product robust.

‘Lagos and Nairobi are two different economies in two different regions of Africa but if we pay attention to the minute details as founders, these two regions definitely belong in the same room for the right conversations to happen,’ he said.

From competition to collaboration

Kehinde Owolabi, founder of BulidersKonnect, said the bigger issue is why the two ecosystems should be learning separately at all.

‘One ecosystem is laying rails. Another is discovering what becomes possible when those rails already exist. Imagine the acceleration if those experiences, lessons and capabilities were deliberately connected across the continent,’ Owolabi posited.

The problem is not a shortage of entrepreneurs, he said, adding that, ‘Africa does not lack founders solving difficult problems. We often lack the connections that allow solutions, knowledge and infrastructure to compound across borders.’

That creates a hidden cost. When ecosystems operate in isolation, founders can spend money and time solving problems that have already been addressed somewhere else. Investors can also misread markets by assuming that a successful model will work in another country without considering differences in infrastructure and consumer behaviour.

‘Perhaps our next advantage will not come from Lagos becoming Nairobi or Nairobi becoming Lagos. It will come from building a connected African ecosystem where each market does not have to rediscover what another has already learned. Fragmentation makes us repeat problems. Connection allows us to compound solutions,’ Owolabi asserted.

Turning local lessons into continental products

Marvel John, an AI automation engineer, said the most important lesson may be how founders transfer knowledge between different environments.

‘Different environments force people to develop different ways of working,’ John said.

The advantage comes when entrepreneurs can separate the underlying principle from the environment in which it was developed and turn it into a system that works elsewhere.

‘That is where technology becomes interesting to me, not just as a tool, but as a way to make better ways of solving problems repeatable,’ he said.

That approach could help African startups move beyond the limits of their individual markets.

Lagos offers experience in building around difficult infrastructure conditions and a huge consumer base. Nairobi offers lessons from an ecosystem where a mature digital-money platform has allowed entrepreneurs to build further up the technology stack.

Neither model is complete on its own. Lagos needs to convert its infrastructure-building strength into more application-layer businesses. Nairobi’s entrepreneurs need to understand how products built on mature infrastructure can travel into markets where those foundations are less developed.

The opportunity in the gap

Africa’s startup market remains concentrated in a small group of major ecosystems, with Nigeria, Kenya, South Africa and Egypt accounting for a large share of venture funding.

But the next stage of growth may not come simply from creating more startups in those hubs. It could come from making the ecosystems more connected.

For investors, that means looking at Lagos and Nairobi not simply as competing destinations for capital but as different environments that can reveal different stages of a company’s development.

For founders, it means understanding that a problem solved in one market can become a product opportunity in another. And for policymakers, it means recognising that Africa’s fragmentation can be both a barrier and a source of innovation if knowledge and technology can move more easily across borders.

The startup gap between Lagos and Nairobi is therefore not necessarily a weakness. It is a map of where different parts of Africa’s digital economy stand.

Lagos is still building some of the rails. Nairobi is showing what can happen when those rails become reliable enough for entrepreneurs to build above them. The bigger opportunity may be to put both experiences in the same room, so Africa does not have to build the same future twice.

Algeria beat host Morocco 3-2 on penalties following a 1-1 draw in regulation time to lift the bronze medal and secure a first-ever TotalEnergies CAF Women’s Africa Cup of Nations podium finish in Rabat on Saturday night.

This was the second meeting between the two North African sides after Morocco’s narrow victory in the group stages of the competition.

The hosts started brightly and came close to opening the scoring in the 17th minute when Ibtissam Jraidi’s first-time effort struck the crossbar.

Morocco eventually found the breakthrough nine minutes later. Kautar Azraf showed impressive technique to eliminate her marker before using her left foot to find the far corner and put the hosts ahead.

Azraf almost doubled Morocco’s advantage soon afterwards with a volley, but the effort bounced awkwardly and lost direction before being cleared to safety.

Jraidi had another opportunity in the 63rd minute when she was sent through on goal, but failed to make a clean connection with her effort.

Algeria returned from the break better organized, probing the Moroccan defence and creating a series of opportunities.

In the 77th minute, a perfectly weighted ball found captain Marine Dafeur in a promising position, but she was unable to direct her effort towards goal.

Three minutes later, Lina Boussaha came close with a well-struck volley that sailed narrowly over the crossbar.

The pressure finally paid off in the 83rd minute after Melissa Bethi produced a brilliant through ball for Boussaha, who showed composure to tuck the ball past the goalkeeper and level the contest at 1-1.

Neither side could find a winner before the final whistle, sending the match to a penalty shootout.

The National Sugar Development Council (NSDC) is repositioning Nigeria’s sugar sector as one of the country’s most compelling industrial investment opportunities.

This, the NSDC said is anchored on a $1 billion EPC-plus-finance partnership with SINOMACH of China, a N10 billion Sugar Project Acceleration Fund established with the Bank of Industry (BoI), and a significantly strengthened accountability regime under the Backward Integration Programme (BIP).

Kamar Bakrin, executive secretary/CEO, National Sugar Development Council outlined the Council’s execution agenda when he received members of the Abuja Chapter of the Chartered Institute of Directors (CIoD) on a courtesy visit to the NSDC headquarters in Abuja on Thursday.

Nigeria consumes about 1.8 million metric tonnes of sugar annually, with an estimated $1billion flowing each year to foreign producers.

Bakrin said the Council views this not as a deficit to be lamented, but as a ready-made domestic market waiting to be recaptured by Nigerian producers – value that the Nigeria Sugar Master Plan (NSMP) 2.0 is designed to retain within the national economy in the form of jobs, rural incomes, foreign exchange savings and industrial capacity.

He noted that the sector’s historical challenge has never been an absence of policy, but the discipline of delivery – a challenge the Council is now confronting directly.

‘We don’t lack policy. What we have struggled with is world-class execution,’ Bakrin said, stressing that the gap is not a farming problem but a governance problem – and therefore one that serious, well-run institutions can fix.

He described NSMP 2.0 as an ‘acceleration mandate’: a deliberate compression of Nigeria’s path to self-sufficiency, targeting the delivery of about two million metric tonnes of locally produced sugar.

Bakrin said the Council’s ambition extends well beyond substituting imports. Sugarcane, he noted, is one of the most generous crops in existence – yielding sugar, ethanol, animal feed and electricity – and NSMP 2.0 is structured to capture that full value chain.

‘We have been blessed with a crop that is one of the most generous God has ever made. From sugarcane you can get sugar, you can get ethanol, you can get animal feed, you can produce power. Our job is to build a bio-industrial ecosystem around it – this is not just about producing a commodity,’ he said.

On enforcement, Bakrin said the Backward Integration Programme has been rebuilt around four principles – qualify, reward, verify and enforce – designed to give both government and investors confidence that quota privileges are matched by real production on the ground.

Companies seeking import quotas must now demonstrate genuine commitment to backward integration, while major refiners are required to provide audited production commitments tied to their quotas, with clear consequences for shortfalls. The Council is deploying satellite imagery alongside field inspections to independently verify activity at every site – replacing self-reporting with objective, data-driven oversight.

Bakrin said the Council’s diagnosis of the sector’s financing challenge is that capital is available – what has been missing is a pipeline of bankable projects capable of absorbing it. The Council’s response is to industrialise project preparation itself.

The N10 billion Sugar Project Acceleration Fund, established with the Bank of Industry, will finance feasibility studies and project preparation, converting greenfield sites into investment-ready packages. These packages will in turn feed the $1 billion EPC-plus-finance agreement signed with SINOMACH of China, which provides a ready channel for construction and financing once projects are prepared.

The Council is complementing this with structured engagement with Afreximbank and a partnership with the Nigeria Governors’ Forum to fast-track the development of sugar estates across the country.

Bakrin highlighted the Sugarcane Outgrower Development Programme (SODP) as a deliberate strategy to make smallholder farmers co-owners of the sector’s growth.

Under NSMP 2.0, every sugar estate is required to reserve land for outgrowers and to invest part of its capital in host communities – through social infrastructure, employment and physical infrastructure – making rural prosperity a design requirement of the programme rather than an afterthought.

Drawing on the Council’s recent engagements with Brazilian authorities and other leading sugar-producing nations, Bakrin said the defining lesson from Brazil’s success was institutional, not agronomic.

‘Brazil did not win by planting better cane. They won by building institutions that compounded productivity for years, for decades,’ he said.

The Council, he added, is applying that same discipline to itself – developing Standard Operating Procedures across all its critical supporting functions using Six Sigma methodology, one of the world’s most exacting process-improvement systems, to build standardised, repeatable and effective processes that will endure beyond the tenure of any individual, including the Chief Executive.

‘I hold a very strong conviction that the difference between the countries that industrialised and those that did not rarely has to do with the quality of their plants. It is the quality of their institutions,’ the Executive Secretary emphasised.

Bakrin invited the Chartered Institute of Directors to play an active role in the emerging sugar economy – strengthening board governance across sugar estates, mills and outgrower companies, and contributing to the policy dialogue and consistency needed to attract patient, long-term capital.

He assured the Institute that the Council’s doors remain open for partnership in support of national development.

Earlier, the leader of the CIoD delegation, Fatima Nana Mede, commended the Council’s leadership on the visible reforms it is spearheading in the sugar industry and the momentum toward self-sufficiency. She affirmed the Institute’s readiness to collaborate with the Council in all areas of mutual interest as part of its contribution to the advancement of the sector.

Somewhere in Johannesburg, Lagos, or Nairobi tonight, a graduate is folding a certificate into a drawer and walking out to sell recharge cards on the street. He did everything right. The system kept its promise to teach him. It broke its promise to employ him profitably. Multiply him by tens of millions, and you do not have a youth unemployment crisis. You have a curriculum catastrophe. Curriculum is a nation’s engine and its operating system at once – get the engine wrong, and the car never leaves the driveway; get the operating system wrong, and every application built on top of it – jobs, industries, GDP – crashes.

The China shockwave

Between 2021 and 2025, China’s Ministry of Education revoked 12,200 undergraduate programmes and introduced 10,200 new ones – over 30 per cent of the national curriculum rewritten in five years. Dead: arts, humanities, foreign languages, traditional management. Resurrected: artificial intelligence, embodied intelligence, robotics, semiconductors, and agricultural automation. Over that window, China’s economy grew from $14.7 trillion to $19.5 trillion. Africa, with a comparable population, moved from $2.7 trillion to $2.82 trillion – essentially standing still. The difference is not luck; it is curriculum, treated as economic infrastructure in one place and ceremonial tradition in the other.

South Africa’s youth unemployment hit 60.9 percent in early 2026. In Nigeria, over 80 per cent of ’employed’ graduates are trapped in low-productivity informal work no degree prepared them for. The jobs are not missing – the WEF projects 170 million new global roles by 2030, and Deloitte estimates the semiconductor industry alone needs over one million additional skilled workers by 2030. Our youth are not perishing for lack of jobs. They are perishing for lack of relevant skill.

The diaspora mirror

And lest anyone blame Africa’s economy alone, follow the graduate abroad. Land him in Toronto, London, or Houston – remove every excuse about local jobs – and the pattern repeats. Indian and Chinese graduates arrive in the same cities and, within a generation, are disproportionately the ones opening businesses: Indian Americans alone now own roughly 60% of the hotels in the United States, among the highest rates of business formation of any immigrant group in the West. African graduates, trained in the same universities the diaspora produces, too often arrive with degrees built for job-seeking, not wealth creation – and end up driving for Uber or staffing care homes, not owning the platforms or the facilities. This is not a verdict on the graduate’s ability. It is a verdict on what his curriculum trained him to become: an employee, not an owner. Twenty years in a classroom should not conclude with a steering wheel and a ride-share app. That is not a diaspora failure. It is a colonial curriculum, still teaching Africans to seek a master’s payroll instead of building their own.

The three-tier fix

Tier 1 – the technical core: AI, semiconductors, embedded systems, robotics, new materials, and biotechnology – the hard infrastructure of the coming economy.

Tier 2 – the human operating system: critical thinking, complex problem-solving, communication, creativity, collaboration, leadership, and entrepreneurship – mandatory for every student, every discipline.

Tier 3 – the Taipei model: academia must stop designing curricula in isolation. Taiwan builds courses the way Taipei Tech and TSMC build them – jointly, reviewed annually, with industry empowered to kill any course that has stopped producing value.

The call

To governments: stop funding the ceremony. Treat the curriculum as infrastructure. If a programme keeps producing unemployed graduates, revoke its accreditation. To universities: open your gates. Co-author your courses with industry every year, or keep training for an economy that no longer exists. And to parents, you are partially responsible for the depression most youths are suffering from today: Stop sending your children to study DEAD DEGREES!

The Phd reckoning

The reform must reach the summit of the academic pyramid, because the crisis is not only undergraduate – it is at its most absurd at the doctoral level. Africa is producing PhDs by the thousands, many parading titles that add zero value to society: theories defended before five examiners and then buried, never touching a farm, a factory, a hospital, or a policy desk. China does not confer its highest degree this way. No African university should either. From today, no doctoral topic should be approved unless it is bound, in writing, to producing or innovating something the nation can point to – a technology built, a yield increased, a disease addressed, a system fixed. A PhD must be a contract with the nation, not a private meditation rewarded with a title. If it cannot name what it produced, it should not be conferred.

WELCOME TO THE CHIP CIVILISATION

Every smartphone, every fighter jet, and every AI model runs on semiconductors – and Africa is absent from that table. New Horizons Africa Group is changing that. This academic season, we launch Africa’s first Semiconductor Knowledge Transfer Program, in direct partnership with Taiwan – the home of the modern chip, the birthplace of TSMC, and the island that turned technical education into a national security asset. African undergraduates will train in semiconductor design, engineering, and fabrication, with the opportunity of an internship inside a semiconductor factory in Taiwan, before they even graduate – taught by the ecosystem that actually builds the world’s chips. Not a theory of semiconductors. The thing itself, transferred directly from source to soil. The verdict has been written: Africa must kill the dead degrees, or the dead degrees will kill Africa.

We are pulling up a chair to the table – and bringing the tools to build at it.

PREPARING HUMANS FOR SPACE

One more frontier deserves the same honesty. Humanity is moving toward becoming a multi-planetary species – SpaceX alone has poured over a decade and tens of billions of dollars into that goal. Whether it arrives in one decade or three matters less than this: the skills for it – closed-loop life support, off-world energy, autonomous robotics – are being built right now, in curricula from Beijing to Austin. Not one African university has asked what it will take to keep a human alive on another world. A continent that cannot enter that conversation has already conceded the century before it begins. The hour is late. The inertia is unaffordable.

Universities are factories of human capital, and no sane factory manufactures without first securing a market. China builds its curriculum backward from the job – she treats curriculum as a means and employment as the end. Africa builds its curriculum forward from tradition and calls the certificate itself the end.

Or are you still wondering why Africa’s curriculum produces 60 percent youth unemployment?

Nigeria’s headline inflation rate eased slightly to 15.43 percent in July 2026, from 15.91 percent recorded in June, even as food inflation rose to 20.31 percent from 17.52 percent, the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) report has shown.

According to the report published on Monday, the July headline inflation rate was also lower than the 24.94 percent recorded in July 2025.

The Bureau attributed the rise in food inflation to changes in the average prices of crayfish, fresh pepper, fresh onions, fresh carrots, rice, water yam, fresh tomatoes, garri, plantain, beef, eggs, guinea corn, ginger and plantain flour, among others.

BusinessDay’s analysis of the report showed that food inflation on a year-on-year basis was highest in Adamawa at 51.36 percent, followed by Katsina at 30.84 percent and Zamfara at 30.65 percent. Borno, at -0.31 percent, Nasarawa at 6.88 percent and Kebbi at 12.50 percent recorded the slowest rises in food inflation.

On a month-on-month basis, July 2026 food inflation was highest in Adamawa at 17.02 percent, Lagos at 13.48 percent and Borno at 13.26 percent, while Jigawa at -3.60 percent, Kebbi at -3.67 percent and Bauchi at -1.85 percent recorded the lowest rates.

The NBS stated that the month-on-month headline inflation rate in July 2026 was 1.57 percent, representing a 0.09 percentage point decline from the 1.66 percent recorded in June.

At the divisional level, the three major contributors to headline inflation were food and non-alcoholic beverages, restaurants and accommodation services, and transport.

The least contributors were recreation, sport and culture; alcoholic beverages, tobacco and narcotics; and insurance and financial services.

Core inflation, which excludes the prices of volatile agricultural produce and energy, stood at 14.97 percent in July 2026 on a year-on-year basis.

On a month-on-month basis, core inflation was 0.15 percent in July 2026, down by 1.51 percentage points compared to June 2026.

On a year-on-year basis, the urban inflation rate in July 2026 was 16.12 percent. On a month-on-month basis, the urban inflation rate was 1.90 percent in July 2026, down by 0.23 percentage points from 2.13 percent recorded in June.

The rural inflation rate stood at 13.77 percent in July 2026 on a year-on-year basis. On a month-on-month basis, rural inflation rose to 0.78 percent, up by 0.25 percentage points from 0.52 percent in June.

The NBS report showed that the all-items inflation rate on a year-on-year basis was highest in Adamawa at 33.03 percent, Yobe at 25.21 percent and Anambra at 23.99 percent.

Nasarawa at 7.86 percent, Kebbi at 9.12 percent and Borno at 9.12 percent recorded the lowest increases in headline inflation on a year-on-year basis.

On a month-on-month basis, July 2026 recorded the highest headline inflation increases in Adamawa at 12.48 percent, Anambra at 9.95 percent and Delta at 9.54 percent.

Niger at -5.86 percent, Enugu at -5.71 percent and Kebbi at -4.89 percent recorded the lowest month-on-month inflation rates, according to the report.

There are moments in history when humanity develops a technology so powerful that the question is no longer simply what the technology can do, but what the technology may ultimately do to humanity itself.

The Industrial Revolution was one such moment. Artificial intelligence is undoubtedly another.

It is therefore highly significant that Pope Leo XIV has chosen artificial intelligence as the subject of his first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas: On Safeguarding the Human Person in the Time of Artificial Intelligence. The document was signed on May 15, 2026, exactly 135 years after Pope Leo XIII issued his famous social encyclical Rerum Novarum, and was formally presented at the Vatican on May 25, 2026.

The symbolism is deliberate. In 1891, Pope Leo XIII confronted the social consequences of the Industrial Revolution: factories, mass urbanisation, poor working conditions, widening inequality and the growing power of industrial capital. In 2026, Pope Leo XIV argues that humanity faces another transformation of comparable magnitude, perhaps even greater, because artificial intelligence is already influencing decisions that affect economic activity, employment, communication, education, security and even warfare.

The Pope is not calling for humanity to reject artificial intelligence. Quite the contrary. His argument is more profound. Technology must remain the servant of humanity and must never become its master.

The central question raised by Magnifica Humanitas is not whether artificial intelligence is good or bad. It is unequivocal that AI is a tool in the hands of humans. Hence, on a personal note, I have always advocated Responsible Human In The Loop (RHITL).

The real question is, what kind of society will human beings build with it?

AI can diagnose diseases, detect fraud, predict equipment failure, accelerate scientific discovery, improve agricultural productivity, automate repetitive work, enhance financial inclusion and transform education.

But the same technology can also facilitate mass surveillance, manipulate elections, create deepfakes, automate discrimination, displace millions of workers, concentrate economic power and enable weapons systems capable of making life-and-death decisions at machine speed, scope and scale: what I usually refer to in my lectures and training sessions as the 3S of AI.

That is why Pope Leo XIV places human dignity at the centre of the AI debate. This clearly resonates with UNESCO’s AI Readiness Assessment Methodology framework and guidelines on the ethical and responsible use of AI.

His message can be reduced to one fundamental principle: human beings must never become mere inputs into an algorithm.

A human being is more than data. More than a credit score. More than a medical record. More than a consumer profile. More than a productivity statistic. More than a biometric identity. And certainly more than an algorithmic prediction.

The encyclical insists that every human person possesses an intrinsic dignity that cannot be measured by intelligence, economic productivity, social usefulness or technological efficiency.

That distinction could become one of the defining moral principles of the AI age.

Artificial Intelligence is not human intelligence

One of the greatest conceptual errors of our generation may be the assumption that because a machine can perform intellectual tasks better than humans, it therefore possesses something equivalent to human intelligence.

AI can calculate faster than us. It can remember more information than us. It can identify patterns hidden within billions of data points. It can analyse documents, generate computer code, compose music and imitate human conversation. But intelligence alone does not define humanity.

Humans possess conscience, empathy, compassion, moral responsibility, relationships, vulnerability, forgiveness, hope, faith and love.

Machines calculate probabilities. Human beings make moral judgements.

Machines optimise outcomes. Humans must decide which outcomes are worth pursuing.

Machines can learn from errors. Human beings can transform mistakes into repentance, wisdom, forgiveness and personal growth.

This distinction becomes particularly important as increasingly sophisticated AI systems are described using human language such as ‘reasoning’, ‘thinking’, ‘understanding’ and ‘agents’.

We must never confuse simulation of human intelligence with humanity itself.

The new concentration of power

Perhaps one of the most important aspects of Magnifica Humanitas is its recognition that artificial intelligence is creating unprecedented concentrations of power.

The world’s most advanced AI systems require enormous quantities of data, specialised semiconductor chips, electricity, data centres, highly trained researchers and huge amounts of capital.

Consequently, a relatively small number of technology companies possess capabilities that were once the exclusive domain of powerful states. In his January 2026 message for World Communications Day, Pope Leo XIV observed that behind the enormous invisible technological forces affecting modern communication lie only a handful of companies.

This should concern governments everywhere.

And Africa in particular.

If artificial intelligence becomes the principal infrastructure of the twenty-first-century economy, countries that do not possess their own AI capacity risk becoming permanently dependent upon foreign technology providers.

Africa must therefore think seriously about:

AI compute infrastructure

Data centres

Sovereign datasets

Large African language models

Cybersecurity infrastructure

AI research capabilities

Talent development

Reliable electricity

Cloud infrastructure

Otherwise, we may wake up one day to discover that the algorithms determining our financial systems, healthcare priorities, education, employment and security were developed thousands of kilometres away by people who may know little about African societies.

AI sovereignty should therefore become part of African economic sovereignty.

Who owns our data?

Data is the crude oil of artificial intelligence.

Without data, modern AI systems cannot learn.

Yet billions of human beings generate extraordinary volumes of data every day through mobile phones, bank transactions, social media, hospitals, schools, internet searches, transportation systems and government databases.

Who owns this data? Who profits from it?

Who determines how it is used?

These questions will become increasingly important.

The encyclical challenges the assumption that data produced through collective human activity should automatically become the commercial property of organisations capable of collecting it. It raises concerns about technological monopolies and the concentration of digital resources.

This has enormous implications for governments, corporations and individuals.

Your face is data. Your voice is data. Your medical history is data. Your purchasing habits are data. Your movements are data. Your financial behaviour is data. Even your relationships may become data.

The AI revolution will therefore require a new social contract concerning information.

The future of work

The workplace may be where artificial intelligence becomes most immediately disruptive.

AI will undoubtedly improve productivity. It will automate thousands of tasks. It will create entirely new industries.

But it will also eliminate certain categories of employment.

The mistake would be to frame this simply as an efficiency question. Corporate leaders cannot merely ask, ‘How many employees can AI replace?’

They must also ask:

‘What happens to those employees?’

‘What new skills will they require?’

‘What responsibilities does the corporation have toward workers whose jobs are transformed?’

‘What happens to society if technological productivity rises while employment opportunities decline?’

The Pope argues that technological development should enhance rather than diminish the dignity of work, and he warns against excessive surveillance and the reduction of workers to rigid machine-directed tasks.

For companies, this means that AI transformation must be accompanied by reskilling, retraining and workforce transition programmes.

Human capital must not become collateral damage in the race for automation.

AI governance is now a board responsibility

This is where the encyclical becomes particularly relevant to corporate Nigeria.

Artificial intelligence can no longer be treated merely as an information technology project. It is now a corporate governance issue.

Boards of Directors must understand the AI systems operating within their organisations. They should know:

What data is being used?

Where is that data stored?

Which AI models are being deployed?

Who supplied the models?

What decisions are being automated?

Are those systems explainable?

Could they discriminate?

Can humans override their decisions?

What cybersecurity vulnerabilities exist?

Who bears responsibility when something goes wrong?

The Pope’s message to an international conference on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics and Corporate Governance in June 2025 already emphasised the responsibility of business leaders to ensure that AI development respects human dignity and contributes to the common good.

Magnifica Humanitas develops this principle much further.

Boards cannot outsource responsibility for artificial intelligence to chief technology officers. Nor can management simply say, ‘The algorithm made the decision.’

Algorithms do not possess fiduciary duties.

Human beings do.

One of the great misconceptions about artificial intelligence is that computers are naturally objective. They are not.

AI systems learn from historical data. If historical data reflects social prejudice, discrimination or inequality, AI can reproduce those biases at an enormous scale.

Imagine an AI system determining:

who receives a bank loan;

who obtains insurance;

who qualifies for employment;

who receives medical treatment;

who receives a government benefit; or

even who becomes the subject of a security investigation.

If the system is biased, discrimination can become invisible because it appears to have been produced by mathematics rather than human judgement.

This is why high-impact AI decisions must retain meaningful human oversight.

Human-in-the-loop governance is not merely a technical safeguard. It is a moral requirement.

AI, deepfakes and the crisis of truth

Another profound and dangerous trend identified by Pope Leo XIV concerns truth itself.

Artificial intelligence can now generate photographs of events that never occurred, videos of people saying things they never said, voices belonging to people who never spoke, news reports describing events that never happened, academic papers written without research and entire online personalities that do not exist.

In his 2026 World Communications Day message, Pope Leo warned that systems capable of simulating human faces, voices, knowledge and relationships can penetrate deeply into the human information environment.

We are therefore entering a world where the problem may no longer simply be misinformation.

The greater danger may be universal distrust.

If citizens begin assuming that every photograph might be fake, every recording manipulated and every document fabricated, the foundations of democratic society become fragile.

Truth is therefore becoming an infrastructure that society must consciously protect.

Education must change

AI will fundamentally change education.

Already, students can generate essays, solve mathematics problems, write computer programmes, code and summarise textbooks within seconds.

Traditional educational systems built largely around memorisation and examination will increasingly struggle.

Pope Leo has acknowledged this challenge directly, noting in June 2026 that widespread AI use makes student assessment more difficult and requires educators to adapt creatively.

The future of education must therefore place greater emphasis on capabilities that machines cannot easily replace:

critical thinking, curiosity, judgement, creativity, character, collaboration, ethical reasoning and the ability to ask intelligent questions.

AI should make education better. It should not make thinking unnecessary.

AI and warfare

Perhaps nowhere is the moral challenge more frightening than warfare.

AI systems can identify targets, navigate drones, analyse battlefield intelligence and accelerate military decision-making.

Pope Leo XIV has repeatedly warned that artificial intelligence must never absolve human beings of responsibility for decisions, particularly in warfare. Speaking at Sapienza University in Rome shortly before issuing the encyclical, he warned that AI must not worsen the tragedy of conflicts or remove human responsibility from military choices.

The danger of autonomous weapons is obvious. If machines become capable of selecting and attacking human targets without meaningful human intervention, humanity crosses an extraordinary moral boundary.

Someone must remain responsible.

Someone must be capable of saying: No.

Africa cannot remain a spectator

For Africa, the implications of Magnifica Humanitas are particularly important.

AI presents extraordinary opportunities. It could help overcome shortages of doctors through diagnostic systems, improve agricultural yields, extend banking services, detect corruption, improve tax administration, enhance electricity-grid management, modernise public services, transform education and improve national security.

But Africa must avoid becoming merely the source of raw data and the consumer of foreign AI products.

The continent must participate in building the technologies shaping its future.

African governments should therefore begin treating AI infrastructure, compute capacity, cybersecurity, data governance and AI talent as national strategic assets.

Our universities must produce not only AI engineers but also philosophers, lawyers, economists, ethicists and public-policy experts capable of shaping the governance of intelligent machines.

These are some of the concerns that I, through GenAI Learning Concepts Ltd, have been drawing the attention of both the public and private sectors through my AI training, seminars and webinars.

AI must be human-centred

In May 2026, the Vatican also established an Inter-Dicasterial Commission on Artificial Intelligence, specifically recognising both AI’s extraordinary potential and its possible consequences for human dignity and integral development.

That action is important.

The Catholic Church is not standing outside the technological revolution condemning it.

It is entering the discussion.

The message is neither ‘Stop Artificial Intelligence’ nor

Nor: ‘Allow artificial intelligence to develop without restraint.’

It is something much wiser:

Develop AI, but keep humanity and human agency at the centre.

And perhaps that should become the governing philosophy of the AI age, in line with the UNESCO RAM on AI ethics.

Every bank deploying artificial intelligence should ask it.

Every government should ask it.

Every technology company should ask it.

Every university should ask it.

Every Board of Directors should ask it.

Every AI developer should ask it.

Not merely:

Can we build it?

But:

Should we build it?

Not merely:

Will it increase efficiency?

But:

Will it increase human flourishing?

Not merely:

Can machines perform this decision?

But:

Should human beings surrender this decision to machines?

Pope Leo XIV’s Magnifica Humanitas may eventually be remembered as one of the great social documents of the Artificial Intelligence era.

Just as Rerum Novarum helped the world think morally about industrial capitalism more than a century ago, Magnifica Humanitas challenges the twenty-first century to think morally about intelligent machines.

Artificial intelligence may become the most consequential technology mankind has ever created.

But no matter how intelligent our machines become, humanity must remain in command.

For ultimately, technological progress should never be measured simply by how powerful our machines become.

It should be measured by whether those machines help us create a world that is more just, more compassionate, more peaceful and, above all, more human.

The European Commission has approved pound 2.3 million in emergency humanitarian funding for Nigeria, Cameroon, the Central African Republic (CAR) and Chad to support efforts to contain an ongoing cholera outbreak across West and Central Africa.

The funding, announced on Monday, is aimed at strengthening outbreak response, improving access to essential healthcare, expanding water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) interventions, and protecting communities considered most vulnerable to the disease.

The intervention follows growing concern over the spread of cholera across the African continent.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), more than 61,000 cholera cases were reported across the WHO African Region during the first five months of 2026.

Nigeria will receive the largest share of the European Union’s emergency allocation, with pound 1.5 million earmarked for the country’s response to the outbreak.

The funding will be used to increase the number of emergency intervention teams deployed to affected areas and provide essential medical supplies, including cholera treatment kits.

It will also support water, sanitation and hygiene measures, including the treatment of public water points and household water supplies, in an effort to reduce the risk of further transmission.

The EU said part of the Nigerian allocation would be used to intensify epidemiological surveillance, particularly in areas that are difficult to access, while strengthening case management, risk communication and community sensitisation.

According to the Commission, Cameroon will receive pound 100,000 to support efforts to contain the outbreak and improve the management of cholera cases in affected communities.

It noted that the funding will facilitate the deployment of additional staff for humanitarian partners working on the ground, provide essential medicines and support the establishment of additional cholera treatment units and oral rehydration points in some of the worst-affected villages.

‘The Central African Republic will receive pound 500,000, which will be used to scale up cholera case management and vaccination, alongside expanded water, sanitation and hygiene interventions.

‘The allocation will also strengthen risk communication and community engagement, surveillance and case detection, while supporting dignified and safe burials for victims of the disease.

‘In Chad, pound 200,000 will be deployed to help break the chain of cholera transmission by improving access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene facilities.

‘The funding will also support communities in surveillance activities and the management of suspected and confirmed cases’, the statement noted.

Hadja Lahbib, Commissioner for Preparedness and Crisis Management, said cholera remained a preventable and treatable disease but could become deadly when communities lacked access to safe water and healthcare.

‘Cholera is preventable and treatable. Yet it still threatens lives when people lack something as basic as safe water and healthcare,’ Lahbib said.

She said the new funding reflected Europe’s commitment to supporting vulnerable communities despite increasing humanitarian needs and declining resources.

‘At a time when humanitarian needs are growing and resources are shrinking, Europe is not looking away.

‘This emergency funding will help our partners act quickly, contain the outbreaks and protect the communities most at risk,’ she added.

Cholera is an acute diarrhoeal infection caused by the bacterium Vibrio cholerae. It is transmitted primarily through the consumption of food or water contaminated with the bacteria, with transmission more likely in areas where access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene is inadequate.

While many infected people may experience mild or moderate symptoms, severe cases can result in rapid and significant loss of body fluids, leading to dehydration, shock and death if treatment is not provided promptly.

The EU said the risk posed by cholera is substantially lower in Europe, where the disease is not common, adding that the likelihood of transmission from imported cases remains low.