Home Blog Page 11

Priced Out of Lagos: How Nigeria’s commercial capital became a city many workers can no longer afford

As rents soar into tens of millions of naira and entire low-income communities disappear under bulldozers, a troubling question hangs over Nigeria’s commercial capital: who can still afford to call Lagos home?

By Law & Society Magazine Analysis

Frank Edoho’s recent remarks struck a chord because they articulated what millions of Lagos residents have known for years: The city’s housing market is drifting steadily beyond the reach of ordinary earners. The former Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? host questioned how property prices in parts of the city had climbed to levels that invite comparisons with luxury assets overseas, including private islands reportedly owned by football icon Cristiano Ronaldo.

Whether the comparison was exact mattered less than the sentiment behind it. Thousands of Nigerians who struggle each month to pay rent saw in those comments a reflection of their own reality—a housing market that increasingly appears detached from the incomes of the people it is meant to serve.

Fresh figures from the Lagos Island Residential Market Report 2026 suggest that this frustration is rooted in more than perception. The report places the average annual rent for a two-bedroom apartment at ₦17.25 million in Ikoyi, ₦15 million in Victoria Island, ₦10 million in Lekki Phase 1, and ₦8.5 million in Ikate, with every one of those markets recording dramatic increases since 2022. In Ikate alone, average rents have risen by more than 183 per cent in just four years. Analysts attribute the surge to familiar pressures—persistent inflation, the depreciation of the naira, escalating construction costs, limited land supply and sustained demand for premium housing—but the figures also point to something that extends well beyond economics.

They raise troubling questions about the direction in which Lagos is evolving and about the place of ordinary Nigerians within that future.

Every weekday, long before sunrise, teachers, nurses, journalists, police officers, junior lawyers, engineers, bankers and civil servants begin journeys that can last several hours simply to reach the offices, schools, hospitals and institutions that keep Lagos functioning. While they work in Victoria Island, Ikoyi and Lekki, many actually live far beyond those districts, commuting daily from Ikorodu, Iyana Ipaja, Badagry, Epe, Mowe and neighbouring Ogun communities because accommodation closer to work has drifted beyond their financial reach.

What used to be an inconvenience has gradually become a defining feature of working life in Nigeria’s commercial capital, draining both time and income from households already grappling with a harsh economy.

The burden does not end with the advertised rent. Prospective tenants are routinely confronted with demands for one or two years’ rent in advance, agency fees, legal fees, agreement charges, caution deposits and service charges that can inflate the total amount payable by millions of naira before a single piece of furniture enters the apartment. For many middle-income earners, securing accommodation has become one of the largest financial decisions they will ever make, often requiring loans, family contributions or years of savings.

Few people would argue that Lagos should stop modernising. As one of Africa’s fastest-growing cities, investment in roads, bridges, commercial centres and new residential developments is both necessary and inevitable. Yet modernisation carries difficult social questions when it proceeds without making room for those displaced by it. Across the state, communities such as Otodo-Gbame, Ilubirin, Tarkwa Bay and parts of Makoko have experienced demolitions or mass evictions over the years, frequently in the name of urban renewal or environmental enforcement. Human rights organisations have repeatedly criticised many of those operations, arguing that thousands of residents were removed without adequate consultation, compensation or meaningful resettlement, leaving families to rebuild their lives elsewhere with little support.

That contrast has become increasingly striking. While luxury developments continue to rise across parts of Lagos Island, affordable replacement housing has failed to emerge on anything close to the scale required. The city appears to be producing homes, yet many of them are designed for a market that excludes those on average incomes.

This dilemma is hardly new. Nigeria’s housing deficit has featured in policy debates for decades, and successive governments have acknowledged the scale of the challenge while unveiling ambitious housing programmes intended to bridge the gap. Lagos State has delivered several public housing estates and entered partnerships with private developers, but population growth has consistently outpaced those efforts. As more people move into the city each year, demand continues to race ahead of supply, leaving affordable housing perpetually beyond reach for millions of residents.

The market itself has also changed. Housing is increasingly viewed not only as shelter but as an investment class. Developers understandably concentrate on projects that promise the strongest returns, while investors channel capital into luxury apartments aimed at expatriates, multinational corporations, diaspora buyers and high-net-worth individuals. In many cases, premium developments generate higher yields through short-let accommodation than through conventional residential leases, reinforcing the commercial logic behind building for wealth rather than affordability.

From a business perspective, the calculations are understandable.

From a public policy perspective, the consequences are becoming harder to ignore.

Young professionals delay buying homes because ownership has slipped beyond their reach. Newly married couples postpone plans to start families while they search for accommodation they can sustain. Employers struggle to retain skilled workers who spend four or five hours each day travelling across the city, and businesses absorb the hidden costs of declining productivity, fatigue and staff turnover. What begins as a housing problem steadily spills into economic performance, family stability and quality of life.

Reducing the debate to supply and demand therefore tells only part of the story. Housing occupies a place unlike almost any other commodity. It provides shelter, certainly, but it also shapes educational opportunities, determines access to healthcare, influences productivity and underpins family life. International human rights instruments, including the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights as interpreted by regional bodies, recognise adequate housing as an essential component of human dignity. When decent accommodation becomes unattainable for large sections of the working population, the consequences extend beyond the property market into the wider social fabric.

Cities around the world have wrestled with similar pressures and have responded in different ways. Some have introduced inclusionary zoning policies requiring developers to allocate portions of new projects to affordable housing. Others provide tax incentives for lower-cost developments, expand public housing programmes or strengthen tenant protections in overheated markets. None of those measures offers a perfect solution, but they reflect an understanding that housing cannot be left entirely to market forces when the market itself consistently rewards only the highest returns.

Lagos stands at a similar crossroads. The city has every reason to celebrate its remarkable economic growth, expanding infrastructure and growing international profile. Its skyline reflects ambition, resilience and investment on a scale unmatched in much of West Africa. Yet the measure of a great city has never rested solely on the height of its buildings or the value of its real estate. It also rests on whether the people who educate its children, patrol its streets, treat its sick, argue its cases in courtrooms, report its stories and keep its businesses alive can still afford to build their lives there.

Frank Edoho’s comments attracted attention because they sounded dramatic. The rental figures now emerging suggest they reflected something far more significant than a passing social media observation. They exposed a widening disconnect between the value of property and the earning power of ordinary Nigerians.

Unless affordable housing begins to receive the same urgency devoted to commercial development and luxury real estate, Lagos risks becoming a city admired for its prosperity while steadily becoming inaccessible to the very people whose labour sustains it.

A commercial capital that cannot house its workforce comfortably is not merely experiencing a property boom; it is confronting a profound question about equity, inclusion and the future of urban life in Nigeria.

Follow our WhatsApp Channel

If women Can run Africa’s best banks, what exactly is stopping them from running Nigeria?

By Kachi Okezie, Esq.

There was something almost unsettling about the scene in London last March. At the Africa Capital Forum, a group of Nigerian women sat on a panel discussing capital, business and the future of Africa. They were bankers. CEOs. Decision-makers.

They were not there to make up the numbers. They were the numbers. The room did not need to be persuaded that these women belonged at the table. Their careers had already made the argument. And now, months later, there is an even more powerful reason to pay attention.

In July, Zenith Bank was named Africa’s Best Bank at the 2026 Euromoney Awards for Excellence. It was also named Nigeria’s Best Bank, retaining that national title for a second consecutive year. The awards were presented in London.

At the centre of that story is Dr Adaora Umeoji, the bank’s Group Managing Director and Chief Executive. That should make Nigerians stop and think. Not because a woman has won an award, but because a woman is leading an institution that has just been judged the best bank in Africa. There is a difference.

For years, the argument for women in leadership has been presented as a question of fairness. We have talked about inclusion, representation, opportunity and the need to “give women a seat at the table”. All of that remains true.

But perhaps we have been asking the wrong question. The more interesting question is this: What happens when women are actually allowed to lead, and then judged on results?

Nigeria’s banking industry is providing an answer. And the answer is uncomfortable for anyone who still believes that women are somehow waiting to be “ready” for serious power. Look around.

Miriam Olusanya at Guaranty Trust Bank; Yemisi Edun at First City Monument Bank; Nneka Onyeali-Ikpe at Fidelity Bank; Halima Buba at SunTrust Bank; Ireti Samuel-Ogbu at Citibank Nigeria; Tomi Somefun at Unity Bank; Yetunde Oni at Union Bank; Kafilat Araoye at Lotus Bank and Bukola Smith at FSDH Merchant Bank.

Different institutions. Different histories. Different personalities. But one unmistakable fact: Nigerian women are running some of the country’s most consequential financial institutions. And they are doing so in one of the most unforgiving environments in African business. Banking does not reward sentiment. It does not care about motivational speeches. It does not care about symbolic appointments. Customers, shareholders, regulators and markets eventually ask the same brutal question: Did you deliver? The evidence increasingly says yes.

Euromoney’s latest assessment of Zenith was based on precisely the things that matter in a difficult banking environment: financial performance, strategy, risk management, digital transformation, customer engagement and wider economic impact. Zenith reported gross earnings of ₦4.19 trillion in 2025 and profit after tax of ₦1.04 trillion. Its non-performing loan ratio fell from 4.7 per cent to 3.8 per cent, while its capital adequacy ratio stood at 25.3 per cent.

That is not a diversity award; it is a performance award. And that distinction matters because the old conversation about women in leadership has often been trapped in the language of possibility. Can they? Will they? Are they ready? Do they have enough experience? Do they have the temperament? Do they have the networks?

Nigeria’s banking sector is quietly answering those questions one balance sheet at a time. Yes. But there is a problem. Nigerian business already trusts women to do what Nigerian politics still hesitates to let them do. In other words, corporate Nigeria appears to have discovered something that Nigerian politics still has not: women can lead. That is where the story stops being a celebration and becomes a challenge.

If a Nigerian woman can lead a bank operating across borders, manage enormous financial exposures, navigate regulators, oversee thousands of employees, drive digital transformation and compete successfully for the title of Africa’s best bank, then the tired suggestion that women are somehow “not ready” for public leadership deserves to be retired.

What exactly are they supposed to be waiting for? Another certificate? Another committee? Another decade? Or another man to give them permission? The evidence is already here. And it is becoming increasingly embarrassing that the corporate sector seems more willing to trust Nigerian women with billions than the political system is willing to trust them with legislative power. That is the contradiction Nigeria needs to confront. The country has no shortage of capable women. It has a shortage of pathways for those women into political power. Those are not the same thing.

The distinction matters because political representation is not a decorative issue. Parliament makes laws that determine how people live. It influences access to finance, education, healthcare, employment, property, security and opportunity.

When women are largely absent from those rooms, Nigeria does not simply have a gender problem. It has a governance problem. What perspectives are missing? What experiences are being ignored? What policies would look different if more women with real-world experience of running businesses, raising capital, creating jobs and managing institutions were helping to write them?

These are not abstract questions. They go to the quality of government itself. And there is another uncomfortable possibility. Perhaps some of Nigeria’s best potential political leaders are already somewhere else: in banks, boardrooms and running companies. They are building professional careers. And they have a perfectly rational reason for staying there.

The private sector, for all its imperfections, tends to make a relatively simple bargain with ambitious professionals: Perform, and you can rise. Politics often makes a different bargain. Connections matter. Patronage matters. Money matters. Party structures matter. Informal networks matter.

And for many women, the price of entry is simply too high. So they go where their competence is more likely to be rewarded. Who can blame them? But Nigeria should worry. Because when talented people opt out of politics, the country does not become less political. It becomes less capable.

This is why the success of women in banking should not be reduced to an inspirational story about breaking barriers. It is something more consequential. It is an indictment of the barriers that remain. The banking sector has shown what happens when professional advancement is increasingly tied to competence, performance, discipline and results. It has not eliminated sexism. It has not created paradise. And it would be naïve to pretend that women in corporate Nigeria have faced no obstacles. But enough barriers have come down for something remarkable to become visible.

Talent can rise. And once talent rises, the old stereotypes become harder to defend. That is why Adaora Umeoji’s Zenith recognition matters beyond Zenith. It is why Miriam Olusanya matters beyond GTBank, and Yemisi Edun matters beyond FCMB. And, it is why Nneka Onyeali-Ikpe matters beyond Fidelity.

Their importance lies not simply in what they have individually achieved, but in what their achievements make impossible to argue. They make it harder to say there are not enough women or that women cannot handle pressure. Or that women lack the experience to run complex organisations. And, perhaps most importantly, they make it harder to tell the next generation of Nigerian women to wait their turn. Their generation is already taking its turn. The real question is where the country will allow them to take it.

There is a temptation, whenever this subject comes up, to respond with another panel, another conference, another award, another photograph of successful women sitting around a table. Nigeria has had enough photographs. What it needs is structural change. If political parties are serious about broadening leadership, they must open their candidate-selection processes. If institutions are serious about representation, they must create credible pipelines into public leadership.

If the country is serious about better governance, it must stop treating half of its talent pool as an optional extra. And women themselves should not be invited into politics merely to decorate a system that has no intention of changing. They should come with power, authority and the freedom to compete as well as the expectation that they will be judged on the same unforgiving standard as everyone else.

That is what corporate Nigeria has, in part, demonstrated. The goal is not to replace men with women, but to stop confusing maleness with leadership. That distinction is long overdue.

The London afternoon in March therefore deserves to be remembered. Not because a group of Nigerian women appeared on a stage, but because, for once, the stage looked like the reality that already exists in parts of Nigeria’s economy. Women are leading. Women are delivering. Women are competing. And women are winning.

And now the international scoreboard is beginning to reflect it. Zenith’s recognition as Africa’s Best Bank is particularly difficult to dismiss because Euromoney did not reward symbolism. It assessed performance. The judges pointed to the bank’s financial strength, digital expansion, retail growth, customer engagement, risk management and regional ambitions. That is the point.

The glass ceiling has not disappeared everywhere. But in parts of Nigerian corporate life, it has been broken badly enough that the old excuses are no longer credible. The political ceiling, however, remains stubbornly intact. And that should concern everyone; not only women. Because a country that can find women capable of running banks but cannot find room for them in parliament is not suffering from a shortage of female talent. It is suffering from a shortage of political imagination.

Nigeria has already conducted the experiment. It gave women responsibility. It gave them institutions to run. It gave them targets. It gave them shareholders, customers, regulators and competitors. And they delivered. Now the country faces a much more consequential experiment: Can it trust women with power outside the boardroom?

The answer should not require another award ceremony. We already know the answer. The real question is whether Nigeria’s political establishment is prepared to act on it. Because the glass ceiling has been shattered and the only thing still standing is the door. And someone needs to open it or kick it down.

-Kachi Okezie, Esq is a legal practitioner, chartered mediator and management consultant.

Follow our WhatsApp Channel

The Executive-Legislative Chimera: Why Nigeria must abolish the “constituency project” farce

By Kachi Okezie, Esq.

In every functional constitutional democracy, the architecture of governance rests upon a single, non-negotiable pillar: the Separation of Powers. As Baron de Montesquieu famously observed, when legislative and executive powers are united in the same authority, liberty ceases to exist. The primary duty of the legislature is to enact laws, represent the public, and hold the executive accountable through the solemn power of public appropriation. The mandate of the executive, conversely, is to administer the state, oversee public procurement and execute development projects.

Yet, in Nigeria’s Fourth Republic, a dangerous constitutional mutation has taken root under the guise of equitable local development: the Zonal Intervention Project, popularly known as the “Constituency Project” scheme. Under this framework, federal lawmakers: senators and members of the House of Representatives, are allocated dedicated pools of taxpayers’ money annually to deliver direct, localised projects to their constituents. What was presented to the public as a well-meaning mechanism to guarantee a “federal presence” in neglected rural communities has morphed into an institutional Frankenstein monster. By conflating legislative allocation with executive project execution, Nigeria has completely bastardised a standard democratic tool, creating an annual, institutionalised vehicle for budget padding, procurement fraud and systemic corruption.

To understand how Nigeria arrived at this crisis, one must trace the scheme’s lineage back to the American model of pork-barrel politics and legislative earmarks. In the United States and other Western democracies, pork-barrel spending emerged as a mechanism for lawmakers to direct federal funds toward specific local projects, such as highways, bridges, military installations, or research centers, in order to bring tangible benefits home and secure political capital for re-election.

Historically, while Western pork-barrel politics has faced valid criticism for fiscal waste, it operates within strict constitutional guardrails. American lawmakers advocate for earmarks through public congressional committee debates, but once funds are appropriated, executive agencies independently handle the bidding, procurement, and execution. The legislator never touches the contract.

The origin of Nigeria’s variant dates back to the dawn of the Fourth Republic in 1999. In the early years of the civil administration, lawmakers in the National Assembly expressed deep frustration over what they perceived as executive marginalisation. They argued that the federal budget, crafted primarily by civil servants and ministers in Abuja, consistently overlooked remote rural communities. To bridge this development gap and give lawmakers a tangible political offering for their home districts, the Olusegun Obasanjo administration introduced the Zonal Intervention Project framework in 2000. However, what began as a compromise to ensure geographical equity quickly mutated.

Lacking institutional safeguards, transparent public bidding processes, and strict separation of powers, the Nigerian system collapsed the critical barrier between legislative budgeting and executive procurement.
The fundamental original sin of Nigeria’s constituency project system lies in this total distortion of constitutional logic. Lawmakers cannot simultaneously act as the authors of the budget, the custodians of public procurement and the supreme judges of project quality. When a legislator (overtly or otherwise) selects a contractor, dictates where a borehole is sunk, or oversees the distribution of empowerment goods, they cross an inviolable constitutional boundary.

The direct offspring of this operational overreach is the practice of budget padding. During the annual budget defence process, the legislature’s power to review the executive’s draft budget is routinely weaponised. Rather than evaluating national economic priorities, lawmakers unilaterally insert thousands of uncosted, unstudied and uncoordinated line items into the budget draft, often totaling hundreds of billions of Naira. Because these items are injected often without input from the relevant Ministries, Departments, and Agencies, they break the back of coherent public financial management.

Specialised research institutes and environmental agencies suddenly find their capital budgets bloated with line items for streetlights, transformers, or motorised tricycles simply because lawmakers domiciled their proxy projects in those specific agencies to evade regulatory scrutiny.
This practice sabotages long-term national development. Federal resources are fragmented into thousands of micro-allocations—tiny, ineffective sums scattered across 360 federal constituencies and 109 senatorial districts. Major, transformative national infrastructure projects are left perpetually underfunded, while public funds are squandered on non-viable, piecemeal interventions.

The rot deepens significantly when project execution begins. Although legal frameworks formally mandate that executive agencies oversee tenders, the reality on the ground is starkly different. Executing agencies are regularly pressured or coerced by legislative oversight committees to award constituency contracts to preferred contractors, often corporate entities owned by or fronting for the lawmakers themselves. This dynamic has given rise to a culture of abandoned infrastructure and kickbacks.

The Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission has repeatedly documented billions of Naira disbursed for constituency projects that were either abandoned immediately after initial mobilisation fees were paid or were complete ghost projects that never commenced.
To make matters worse, lawmakers have increasingly shifted their budget insertions away from tangible physical infrastructure such as schools, roads, and primary healthcare centers, toward opaque empowerment schemes. Hundreds of millions of dollars are swallowed annually by non-auditable activities, including short capacity-building workshops, informal grants, or the distribution of sewing machines and grinding equipment. Because these soft projects leave no lasting physical footprint, they provide the perfect legal cover for pure financial extraction.

Furthermore, by stepping directly into project execution, lawmakers render parliamentary oversight utterly meaningless. How can a National Assembly committee objectively investigate corrupt practices or delayed contract execution in a ministry when the contractor in question is a front company for the committee chairman? When the watchdog becomes financially invested in the project, accountability dies.

The argument most frequently mounted in defence of constituency projects, that without them, rural communities would be completely ignored by a centralised executive, is a false choice. It excuses the systemic failures of executive agencies by encouraging legislators to act as mini-governors, bypassing the statutory institutions built to drive national development. If a community lacks clean water or primary healthcare, the answer is not to hand a lawmaker a private procurement allocation. The solution is to strengthen local government administration, reform federal executive procurement, and demand accountability from the Ministries of Water Resources and Health.

To restore constitutional purity and fiscal sanity to its governance architecture, Nigeria must take decisive reformatory action. First, the 1999 Constitution must be amended to explicitly bar the National Assembly and State Houses of Assembly from inserting net-new operational or procurement line items into the executive budget draft. Legislative power over the purse must be strictly limited to adjusting allocations, cutting waste, or rejecting proposals; never initiating private public-works portfolios.

Second, the federal government must formally dismantle the Zonal Intervention Project framework by statutory prohibition. All capital expenditure must originate from national sectoral strategies developed by executive ministries, subject to rigorous cost-benefit analyses, project best use case evaluation and public tender processes.

Finally, the Public Procurement Act must be amended to strictly criminalise any direct or indirect interference by a legislator in contractor selection, tender evaluation, or contract execution within executive agencies, classifying such acts as major economic crimes.

A legislator’s true contribution to their constituents lies in rigorous representation, transformative lawmaking and uncompromising oversight of executive spending; not in acting as a distributor of contracts and handouts. Until Nigeria abolishes the constituency project model and forces the legislature back into its proper constitutional orbit, the national budget will remain less a blueprint for national development and growth and more an annual, institutionalised heist.

-Kachi Okezie, Esq is a legal practitioner and chartered mediator.

The views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Law & Society Magazine.

Follow our WhatsApp Channel

‘No Election Is Worth a Single Life’: NBA moves to calm Osun after Amnesty, NHRC condemn alleged kill threats

Just days before Osun State heads to one of Nigeria’s most closely watched governorship elections, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has mounted an unprecedented intervention, warning political actors that no electoral victory is worth human lives as the campaign enters its most volatile phase.

The legal body’s peace mission comes against the backdrop of growing national and international concern over inflammatory political rhetoric, including a viral campaign video allegedly showing Senator Francis Fadahunsi urging supporters to attack opposition members—remarks that triggered condemnation from Amnesty International, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), civil society organisations and leading political figures.

Amnesty International Nigeria described the alleged comments as “reckless” and capable of inciting electoral violence, while its Country Director, Isa Sanusi, warned that the organisation intended to make the senator “an example” internationally by publicising the incident across its global network. The NHRC, the Accord Party and several civil society coalitions similarly demanded criminal investigation and prosecution, arguing that incitement to violence should never become part of democratic competition.

Although Senator Fadahunsi has denied encouraging violence, insisting that his remarks referred to “killing opponents with votes” and that the viral clip was edited out of context, the controversy has heightened anxieties ahead of Saturday’s poll. Police have since questioned the senator as part of ongoing investigations.

Against that tense backdrop, NBA President Mazi Afam Osigwe, SAN, led a high-powered delegation to Osun State, holding separate meetings with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), senior police officers and members of the legal profession in what observers describe as one of the profession’s clearest interventions aimed at preventing electoral violence before ballots are cast.

NBA Seeks Assurances from INEC

The delegation first visited the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mrs Oluwatoyin O. Babalola, the first woman to serve as INEC’s Resident Electoral Commissioner in Osun State.

Congratulating her appointment, Osigwe urged her to uphold the independence, integrity and impartiality expected of both the electoral commission and the legal profession.

Babalola assured the delegation that INEC had completed extensive preparations for the election, including intensive training for electoral officials aimed at reducing human error and strengthening public confidence in the voting process.

She also disclosed that voter education campaigns had continued across the state, particularly among students and community groups, while assuring Nigerians that every lawful vote would count.

Addressing concerns over recent violence, the REC maintained that disturbances recorded in parts of the state were largely linked to cult-related activities rather than organised political attacks.

Police Promise Massive Security Deployment

The NBA delegation also met with Deputy Inspector-General of Police Mohammed Ishaku and other senior officers coordinating election security.

The police leadership assured the association that comprehensive security arrangements had been activated across Osun, with thousands of officers already deployed and further reinforcements expected before election day.

According to the police, operational plans are designed to secure polling units, electoral materials and voters throughout the exercise while responding rapidly to any security threats.

‘Power Must Never Be Pursued Through Bloodshed’

Speaking during a press conference at the NBA Osogbo Branch, Osigwe delivered perhaps the strongest message of the visit.

He urged electoral officials, politicians, security agencies and public office holders to remain neutral and resist every temptation to manipulate the process.

“The only acceptable outcome,” he stressed, “is one that reflects the freely expressed will of the people.”

He appealed directly to political leaders to lower the political temperature, warning that Osun must not become another example of democracy undermined by violence.

“No life should be lost in the pursuit of political power,” he said, urging candidates and their supporters to reject intimidation, violence and electoral malpractice.

Osigwe also reminded lawyers serving as election observers that they remain guardians of the rule of law, urging them to discharge their duties professionally while taking appropriate precautions for their personal safety.

International Attention on Osun

The NBA’s intervention comes after unusually strong reactions from both domestic and international organisations over inflammatory campaign rhetoric.

Amnesty International warned that language capable of encouraging attacks on political opponents threatens not only the credibility of the election but also Nigeria’s obligations under international human rights law.

The National Human Rights Commission similarly emphasised that political speech carrying the potential to provoke violence should attract legal consequences where appropriate.

Civil society organisations have also renewed calls for political parties to publicly commit themselves to peaceful campaigns, while warning that unchecked hate speech has historically preceded electoral violence in several parts of the country.

The concern extends beyond Nigeria. International election observers have repeatedly identified inflammatory political language as one of the strongest predictors of election-related violence, particularly where such remarks go unchallenged by party leaders or law enforcement agencies.

A Familiar Democratic Test

For legal observers, the NBA’s mission reflects a broader constitutional principle: elections derive their legitimacy not merely from votes cast, but from the conditions under which citizens are able to vote freely and safely.

Nigeria’s Electoral Act criminalises acts of violence, intimidation and conduct intended to prevent citizens from exercising their electoral rights. International instruments to which Nigeria is a party—including the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the ECOWAS Protocol on Democracy and Good Governance—also impose obligations to safeguard peaceful democratic participation.

Those principles acquire greater significance whenever political rhetoric appears capable of inflaming already fragile tensions.

As Osun prepares to vote, the challenge extends beyond determining who wins the governorship. It is also a test of whether political competition can remain within the limits of law, restraint and democratic responsibility.

For the Nigerian Bar Association, that is the standard against which Saturday’s election will ultimately be judged.

Follow our WhatsApp Channel

The Judge Who Refused to Bow: How a contempt case ended a judicial career—and tested Nigeria’s separation of powers

By Eyimofe Atake, SAN

It began as a straightforward contempt proceeding against a senior government official accused of repeatedly ignoring court orders. Within months, however, it had become one of the most extraordinary constitutional confrontations in Nigeria’s judicial history—drawing in the Chief Justice of Nigeria, the Attorney-General of the Federation and senior judicial leaders, before ending with a High Court judge voluntarily leaving the Bench rather than, in his words, submit to “the humiliation and disgrace of the judiciary.”

More than four decades later, the dramatic encounter between Justice A.A. Jinadu, John Odigie Oyegun and government lawyer Moshood Adio continues to provoke difficult questions about judicial discipline, executive influence and the limits of judicial authority. Recounting the episode from his 1992 book, Contempt in the Face of the Court, Senior Advocate of Nigeria Eyimofe Atake argues that while the judge erred in summarily disrobing counsel, an even greater constitutional wrong lay in compelling a serving judge to account for his judicial conduct before a panel that included the nation’s Attorney-General.

On Justice Jinadu and Mr. Adio, permit me to give the accurate account, for the case is treated in full in my book, Contempt in the Face of the Court by Eyimofe Atake, published in 1992, where it appears as Re Oyegun, unreported; the contemporary record is The Lagos Guardian of 4 October 1984. What follows is from the book.

The orders of Jinadu, J of the Lagos High Court had been defied five times by the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Mr. John Kenneth Oyegun, known to a later generation as John Odigie Oyegun, who became Governor of Edo State and, later still, national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Oyegun had been ordered to reinstate a fireman, Mr. Saidu Garba, pending the determination of Garba’s case of unlawful dismissal; despite five summonses to appear and show cause why he should not be committed for contempt, he failed to appear. Representing Oyegun was Mr. Moshood Adio, a legal adviser in the Federal Ministry of Justice; and here let me add a fact within my own knowledge: Adio had in earlier years worked under Jinadu himself in the Ministry of Justice. It may well explain the judge’s anger at what followed. Asked by the trial judge whether he had filed a return to the order summoning Mr. Oyegun to court, Mr. Adio replied that he did not know what was meant by filing a return: a lawyer trained under the judge’s own eye, professing not to know what a return was. The trial judge then asked Mr. Adio to step out of the Bar and take off his wig and gown. Jinadu, J later explained that Adio was disrobed for no other reason “than to instill discipline in Mr. Adio and to retrieve not my own name but the respect and dignity of the institution, the orders of which are being flouted.”

Then came the astonishing sequel: it was the judge who was called to account. The Judicial Advisory Committee, headed by the Chief Justice of Nigeria of the day, Chief Justice George Sodeinde Sowemimo, asked the trial judge to appear before the Chief Justice, the President of the Federal Court of Appeal, Justice Mamman Nasir, the Chief Judge of Lagos State, Justice Adetunji Adefarasin, and the Attorney General of the Federation, Chief Chike Ofodile, SAN, to explain his behaviour: a behaviour said to include not only the disrobing but an earlier matter in which state counsel Omotade had sought an adjournment on the ground of a toothache, which was refused, and it was alleged that Jinadu, J had addressed him as “drunk,” which Jinadu denied; and the transfer dispute with Adefarasin, CJ: Jinadu said in open court that the Oyegun contempt case had been transferred from his court by the Chief Judge; the Chief Judge insisted Jinadu had asked for the transfer; and the Committee preferred the Chief Judge’s version and said that Jinadu, J had lied. To all of it, Jinadu asserted the judge’s charter: “It is a cardinal principle of the independence of the judiciary that a judge is free in the course of any proceedings before him to make any observations on both parties and counsel without fear of being charged or disciplined for making such an observation.”

And then the words for which the saga is remembered, emphasising how sad it was that he should be the one asked to explain himself, and how wrong that he should appear before the Attorney General: “I cannot be a party to this humiliation and disgrace to the judiciary… Accordingly, I cannot see how I can continue to serve as a judge under such a system. I have already given notice of my retirement from service. I cannot condone any attempt to destroy the judicial system in this country using me as a scapegoat.” He was as good as his word, and left the Bench. At the time it was seen for what it was: an act of rare courage, a judge standing up, alone, to the Chief Justice of Nigeria, to his own Chief Judge, and to the Judicial Advisory Committee itself, and choosing to lay down his office rather than bow.

The book’s verdict cuts both ways, and I stand by it. The disrobing procedure was wrong. The show cause principle is the application of the principles of natural justice, above all the maxim audi alteram partem, hear the other side: a judge citing for contempt in the face of the court must lay the particulars of the alleged contempt specifically and distinctly before the alleged contemnor, ask him to show cause why he should not be committed, and give him an opportunity to be heard in his defence. None of that was done; instead, Mr. Adio was simply told to take off his wig and gown. But it was equally wrong, and offensive to the separation of powers under the Constitution, to require a judge to explain himself and apologise before a panel that included the Attorney General of the Federation, an arm of the executive; and doing so condoned the behaviour of Mr. Oyegun, and perhaps of Mr. Adio as well, who had been unhelpful throughout. Two wrongs met in that courtroom, and the judiciary paid for both.

And the after lives complete the tale: Mr. Adio rose to become Chief Judge of Oyo State, retiring as M. O. Adio, CJ; his elder brother, Justice Yekini Olayiwola Adio, rose to the Supreme Court of Nigeria, where he served until his death in harness in 1997; and his son, Seni Adio, took Silk.

For the full case, with the authorities, the footnotes and the comparative treatment, read it in Contempt in the Face of the Court by Eyimofe Atake.

Eyimofe Atake, SAN, PhD (Cantab)

Follow our WhatsApp Channel

At 89, Chief Anthony Mogboh, SAN remains a towering pillar of the Nigerian bar — Emeka Ngige, SAN pays stirring tribute

Some lawyers build careers. A rare few build institutions, shape generations and leave footprints that time cannot erase.

The Chairman of the Council of Legal Education, Chief Emeka Ngige, OFR, SAN, Life Bencher, has paid glowing tribute to one of Nigeria’s most revered legal statesmen, Chief Anthony Okoye Mogboh, SAN, as the elder jurist marks his 89th birthday, describing him as “a towering pillar of the Nigerian Bar whose life continues to inspire generations of lawyers.”

In a heartfelt goodwill message, Ngige joined family members, friends, colleagues, Benchers, Senior Advocates of Nigeria and members of the legal profession in celebrating the nonagenarian-in-waiting, whose six decades at the Bar have left an enduring imprint on Nigeria’s legal, constitutional and judicial development.

According to Ngige, age has done little to diminish Chief Mogboh’s standing as one of the country’s foremost legal minds, insisting that his legacy cannot be measured merely by the offices he occupied but by the generations of lawyers he nurtured, the institutions he strengthened and the values he exemplified.

“Today, as you attain the remarkable age of 89, the entire legal profession celebrates not only your longevity but a life of uncommon service, scholarship, integrity and selfless commitment to justice.

“Your name has become synonymous with excellence at the Bar, fidelity to the rule of law and unwavering devotion to the growth of legal institutions in Nigeria.”

Ngige noted that few lawyers in Nigerian history have combined distinguished advocacy, public service, institutional leadership and mentorship on the scale achieved by Chief Mogboh.

Chief AO Mogboh SAN and Ngige, SAN and Chief Emeka Ngige, SAN

Called to the English Bar at Lincoln’s Inn on 6 February 1962, Chief Mogboh returned home to begin what has become one of the longest and most distinguished careers in Nigerian legal history. Educated at St. Mary’s School, Port Harcourt, Bishop Shanahan College, Owerri, the London School of Economics and Political Science, and later the Hague Academy of International Law, he built a reputation that transcended the courtroom.

Over the decades, he served as Commissioner for Lands, Survey and Urban Development in the former East Central State before becoming Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice of old Anambra State during the administration of the late Chief C.C. Onoh. His public service later extended to the 1999 Constitution Drafting Committee, the National Judicial Council, the Body of Benchers, the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee, and several other national assignments that shaped Nigeria’s legal architecture.

Ngige observed that beyond the impressive résumé lies an even greater achievement—his influence on people.

He recalled that Chief Mogboh’s chambers became a training ground for generations of lawyers, many of whom rose to become Justices of the Supreme Court, Justices of the Court of Appeal, judges of superior courts, Senior Advocates of Nigeria, Benchers and respected leaders of the profession.

“Your chambers did not merely produce advocates; they produced leaders. Countless members of the Bench and Bar today proudly trace their professional roots to your guidance, discipline and generosity of spirit.

“In an era when mentorship is increasingly spoken about but too rarely practised, you have remained one of its finest examples.”

Ngige also praised Chief Mogboh’s enduring commitment to legal education and philanthropy, recalling his support for institutions of higher learning, including the construction of the Faculty of Law building at Spiritan University, Nneochi, and his longstanding contributions to the advancement of legal scholarship.

He said the celebrant’s life demonstrates that professional success carries a corresponding duty to strengthen institutions and create opportunities for future generations.

Reflecting on his personal relationship with the elder statesman, Ngige said he still remembers their first encounter during their university days in the early 1980s, describing Chief Mogboh as a man of unusual warmth, humility and generosity—qualities that have remained unchanged despite decades of professional distinction.

According to him, those who know Chief Mogboh beyond the courtroom speak not only of a brilliant advocate but also of a compassionate leader whose counsel has guided many through difficult moments in both professional and personal life.

“As the years pass,” Ngige added, “your greatest monuments are no longer the cases you argued or the offices you occupied, but the lives you have shaped and the institutions you helped build.”

He prayed that Almighty God would continue to grant the elder statesman sound health, peace, strength and many more years of fulfilment.

“On behalf of the Council of Legal Education, the Nigerian Law School community, my family and myself, I heartily congratulate you on this remarkable milestone.

“May the Almighty continue to bless you with good health, abiding peace and the grace to witness many more years in the service of God, humanity and the legal profession.

“Happy 89th Birthday, Chief Anthony Okoye Mogboh, SAN. Nigeria is richer because of your life’s work, and the legal profession remains deeply indebted to your enduring legacy.”

At 89, Chief Anthony Mogboh stands among the dwindling generation of legal pioneers whose careers have spanned colonial legal education, Nigeria’s First Republic, military rule and constitutional democracy. His story is inseparable from the story of the Nigerian Bar itself—a reminder that while laws may change and institutions evolve, the values of integrity, mentorship and public service remain the profession’s most enduring inheritance.

Follow our WhatsApp Channel

Clara Ester Obituary: Witness of Martin Luther King’s assassination dies at 78

Ester at her graduation in 1969; Martin Luther King giving a speech in 1967, a year before he was shot dead



She was the civil rights activist who abandoned her militant tendencies after trying in vain to save King’s life in Memphis.

The Times

Early on the evening of April 4, 1968, Clara Ester, a 20-year-old black student, drove with a friend to the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. She did so less to see Martin Luther King, the great civil rights leader who was staying there, than to enjoy the special it was offering for dinner that night. “I just wanted some catfish,” she said.

Ester never ate the special. At 6pm she was standing in the motel’s car park and looking up at the man she called her hero and “our hope” as he greeted a few wellwishers from the walkway outside his first-floor room. He was “happy as a lark — laughing about stuff”, she said. “Just then, we heard a blast like a truck backfiring. It was a gunshot. I saw Dr King thrown up in the air and then back down.”
She and her friend rushed up the stairs to the balcony. “He was breathing, but very slowly. I unbuckled his belt to help. His eyes were open. On the side of his head and neck was a pool of blood.” She tried to stanch the bleeding with towels, but to no avail. “I guess because he’d just been involved in such pleasant conversation, there was a most comfortable, relaxed expression on his face,” she recalled nearly 50 years later.

Except for Andrew Young, who later became the US ambassador to the United Nations under President Carter, Ester was believed to be the last surviving witness to King’s assassination, and it was an event that irrevocably changed her life. Before he was shot she had flirted with violence in pursuit of equal rights for black Americans. Afterwards she embraced his creed of non-violent struggle, and spent the next half-century working peacefully for racial justice and reconciliation. “I was no longer the same person I had been,” she said. She regarded King’s death as a crucifixion, and her role was to “pick up the cross and carry it”.

Clara Jean Ester was born in Memphis in 1948. Her father was a railway worker; her mother a cook and cleaner. She was raised in an era of rigid racial segregation in the southern United States, but her parents managed to shield her from its effects until she was seven. She then witnessed some white officials berating her mother for using a bathroom for white people at an empty railway station. “I’d never seen anybody talk to my mother like that. My dad didn’t talk to my mother like that. That’s when I started seeing the injustices,” she said.

She did well at her all-black high school, and gained a place to study elementary school education at an all-black college in Memphis. By then the civil rights era was in full swing, and by her third year — 1968 — she was actively supporting a protracted strike by the city’s black rubbish collectors after two of them had been crushed to death in a garbage truck’s compactor.

Her support consisted of more than marching, picketing and organising student boycotts as the workers demanded better conditions. On occasion she borrowed her father’s car to drive more militant activists to burn down white-owned business premises, and even threw a few Molotov cocktails herself. Then King arrived in Memphis to support the strike. The evening before his assassination, she watched him deliver one of his most famous speeches at the all-black Mason Temple church that she and her family attended. “I’ve been to the mountaintop,” he declared as he appeared to anticipate his own death. “I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you, but I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land.” Scarcely 24 hours later he was shot by James Earl Ray, a fanatical segregationist.

In the immediate aftermath of the assassination, the police held Ester and other witnesses at the motel until 1.30am. “Why are y’all questioning us? We didn’t do it. Y’all did,” she told them in her fury.
She did go on to graduate from LeMoyne-Owen College, but soon after that she left Memphis and moved to a deprived area of Mobile, Alabama. There she worked at, and later became executive director of, a vibrant community centre that provided priceless support for homeless mothers and children, the blind, the deaf, struggling students and others. She also became a deaconess at her United Methodist church, preaching justice and reconciliation. “There’s no kind of injustice — gay rights, immigrant rights, whatever — that I don’t feel obligated to address,” she once wrote. “We have to learn how to love one another and live together.”

All that she did despite suffering various personal tragedies. In 1970 her fiancé was killed in a car crash; she never married. In 1985 she spent months in hospital after her car was crushed by an articulated lorry while she was driving back to Memphis for her father’s funeral. A four-year-old boy she adopted in 1981 suffered from severe mental illness as he grew up and had to be institutionalised.
Only towards the end of her life did Ester talk openly about her presence at King’s assassination, and about how it changed her. One reason for that was that she wanted her work to speak for itself. Another was a lack of irrefutable evidence that she really did witness King’s final moments.

The famous photograph that Joseph Louw, a South African documentary-maker, took immediately after the shooting showed various aides gathered around King’s body on the balcony and pointing in the direction of the shooter, but Ester was largely obscured.

But then, in 2013, the Memphis Commercial Appeal newspaper belatedly published a contemporaneous photograph retrieved from FBI files which demonstrated beyond doubt that Ester was present. “After that,” she said, “I felt there was some proof.”

Clara Ester, civil rights activist, was born on February 17, 1948. She died of a stroke on July 9, 2026, aged 78

Source: https://www.thetimes.com/article/822cf06b-3e1d-4a65-89c0-6a6b7dfbad68?shareToken=3b1dd7421f8f9ae400248e08c1559411

Follow our WhatsApp Channel

From Hope to Heartbreak: Katsina United’s Chinedu Ozor dies after false dawn, renewing questions over emergency care in Nigerian football

For a brief moment, a nation believed football had witnessed a miracle. In the end, it was left mourning another young life lost far too soon.

Nigeria’s football community has been plunged into mourning following the death of Katsina United defender Ozor Chinedu, the teenage player whose remarkable return to life after being taken to a mortuary had briefly inspired hope across the country.

The 18-year-old defender died after spending several days in critical condition at Katsina General Hospital, bringing a heartbreaking end to a story that had captivated football fans and raised difficult questions about emergency medical care in Nigerian sports.

Chinedu collapsed on the pitch during a pre-season fixture between Katsina United and Niger Tornadoes in the Gusau/Ahlan Pre-Season Cup at the Muhammadu Dikko Stadium in Katsina.

He was rushed to a private hospital, where he was reportedly certified dead before his body was transferred to the mortuary. It was there that mortuary attendants noticed signs of movement, prompting an emergency transfer to the Intensive Care Unit of Katsina General Hospital.

The extraordinary development spread rapidly across the country. Football supporters, teammates and clubs abandoned mourning messages for prayers, hoping the young defender might recover.

That hope has now been extinguished.

His remains are being conveyed to his home state for burial as tributes continue to pour in from across Nigeria’s football fraternity.

A Career Cut Short

Chinedu had only recently joined Katsina United after spells with Kano Pillars’ youth system and Heartland FC. Coaches and teammates described him as one of the promising defenders of his generation, admired for his discipline, composure and determination.

Although he had barely begun to establish himself in the professional game, those who worked with him believed he possessed the talent to progress to the highest level.

Instead, his career has ended before it truly began.

Friends and colleagues say Chinedu’s body is now being taken to his family for burial, where relatives and members of his community are preparing to receive the young footballer whose final journey has drawn national attention. What should have been the beginning of a promising professional career has instead become a funeral procession, leaving a family to mourn a son and a community to bury one of its brightest hopes.

A Tragedy That Raises Familiar Questions

His death has also revived concerns about medical preparedness at football matches in Nigeria.

Across the world, football authorities have strengthened emergency protocols following the collapses of players such as Denmark’s Christian Eriksen at UEFA Euro 2020, whose life was saved through immediate cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), rapid defibrillation and swift specialist medical intervention.

Read Also: From Obituary To ICU: Katsina United defender declared dead, then found alive in mortuary

Cameroon’s Marc-Vivien Foé collapsed and died during the 2003 FIFA Confederations Cup, while Spanish footballer Antonio Puerta died in 2007 after suffering repeated cardiac arrests. More recently, several professional players have survived similar incidents because emergency medical teams and life-saving equipment were immediately available.

Sports medicine experts have long maintained that the first few minutes after a cardiac collapse often determine whether an athlete lives or dies. That reality has fuelled renewed debate over whether every Nigerian professional match has adequately equipped ambulances, defibrillators, trained emergency personnel and clearly rehearsed medical response plans.

While there has been no official indication that deficiencies in emergency response contributed to Chinedu’s death, the circumstances surrounding the incident have inevitably prompted fresh scrutiny of match-day medical arrangements.

Calls for Medical Review

The unusual sequence of events—from an initial declaration of death to the discovery of signs of life at the mortuary—has also sparked wider conversations about emergency diagnosis, patient monitoring and medical protocols before death is certified.

Medical experts note that although extremely rare, cases have been documented worldwide in which patients initially believed to have died later showed signs of life, underscoring the importance of careful observation and strict verification procedures before certification.

The circumstances of Chinedu’s case have therefore generated calls for a comprehensive medical review, both to establish exactly what happened and to identify lessons that could strengthen emergency care for athletes.

Football Pays Tribute

Messages of condolence have continued to arrive from clubs, officials and supporters who followed the teenager’s remarkable but ultimately tragic story.

For many Nigerians, the images remain difficult to forget: a young footballer carried lifeless from the pitch, a family suddenly given hope after signs of life emerged in a mortuary, and days of anxious prayers before the devastating news finally arrived.

His death is more than the loss of a promising defender. It is another painful reminder that talent alone cannot protect athletes where emergency medical systems fall short, and that every minute counts when life hangs in the balance.

For Katsina United, his family and Nigeria’s football community, what began as a story of extraordinary hope has ended in profound grief.

Follow our WhatsApp Channel

DTN@100 heroes awards honours national development, sustainability, social impact and national global champion award recipients

The Organising Council of the Daily Times Nigeria Centenary (DTN@100) Heroes Awards has announced the recipients of four of its prestigious special honours, recognising exceptional individuals and institutions whose visionary leadership, innovation and transformational contributions continue
to advance Nigeria’s economic growth, environmental sustainability, social development and global competitiveness.

The latest announcement forms part of activities leading to the DTN@100 Conference, Grand Book Unveiling and Times Heroes Awards, a landmark event commemorating the centenary of Daily Times Nigeria and celebrating a century of impactful journalism, national discourse and nation-building.

This year’s special honours recognise outstanding achievements in the categories of National Global Champion Award, National Development Award, Sustainability Award and Social Impact Award, celebrating recipients whose work continues to create measurable impact across Nigeria and beyond.
Announcing the recipients, Chairman of the DTN@100 Organising Council, Bolaji Okusaga, said the awards reflect the Council’s commitment to recognising individuals and institutions whose leadership has delivered lasting value to society and inspired national progress.

“The DTN@100 Heroes Awards were conceived to celebrate exceptional leadership, innovation and service that have contributed meaningfully to Nigeria’s development over the past century while inspiring the country’s future. These honours recognise individuals and institutions whose achievements extend beyond personal success to creating lasting impact on communities, industries and the nation as a whole,” he said.

He added that the Awards have become one of the defining legacies of the Daily Times centenary celebrations, preserving and celebrating the stories of outstanding Nigerians and institutions whose contributions continue to shape the country’s development trajectory.

The Organising Council announced Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadu, OON, President of the Nigeria Arabian Gulf Chamber of Commerce (NAGCC), was honoured with the National Global Champion Award for his exceptional leadership in advancing Nigeria’s global economic engagement and strengthening strategic trade and investment partnerships between Nigeria and the Arabian Gulf region. Through visionary leadership, enterprise promotion and economic diplomacy, he has expanded opportunities for cross-border investment, enhanced Nigeria’s international competitiveness and contributed significantly to positioning the country as a preferred destination for global commerce and sustainable economic
development.

The National Development Award was presented to Dr. Olasupo Olusi, Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the Bank of Industry (BOI), for his outstanding leadership in driving industrialisation, enterprise development, job creation and inclusive economic growth. Under his leadership, the Bank of Industry has continued to expand access to finance for businesses, strengthen local manufacturing, empower entrepreneurs and accelerate Nigeria’s industrial transformation, reinforcing its position as one of the country’s foremost development finance institutions.

The Organising Council also recognised Mr. Abdulhamid Umar, National Project Coordinator of the Agro-Climatic Resilience in Semi-Arid Landscapes (ACReSAL) Programme, with the DTN@100 Sustainability Award for his outstanding leadership in driving one of Nigeria’s most ambitious climate resilience and landscape restoration initiatives. Under his stewardship, the World Bank-supported programme
has strengthened environmental sustainability, restored degraded ecosystems, enhanced agricultural resilience and improved livelihoods across participating states, positioning ACReSAL as a model for sustainable.

The Council also honoured Professor Oyelaran Oyeyinka with the Social Impact Award, recognising his remarkable contributions to public policy, innovation, knowledge development and inclusive socio-economic transformation across Africa. For decades, Professor Oyeyinka has distinguished himself through exemplary service in academia, international development and policy advisory, influencing
development thinking, strengthening institutions and advancing inclusive growth across the continent.
According to Okusaga, the selection process reflected the high standards that have come to define the DTN@100 Heroes Awards.

“Our Awards Board undertook a rigorous and independent assessment of nominees, focusing on measurable impact, transformational leadership, innovation and enduring contributions to national development. The recipients announced today exemplify excellence, integrity and visionary leadership, and their achievements deserve national recognition,” he added.

The Organising Council also announced that public voting remains open for the Financial Innovation Award, encouraging Nigerians at home and in the diaspora to participate in recognising organisations that are redefining financial innovation and expanding access to financial services.

Okusaga emphasised that public participation remains an important pillar of the awards process. “These awards belong to Nigerians. Public participation reinforces the credibility, inclusiveness and national ownership of this initiative. We therefore encourage citizens to continue supporting individuals and organisations whose work is creating meaningful impact and contributing to Nigeria’s progress.”

The DTN@100 Conference, Grand Book Unveiling and Times Heroes Awards will culminate in a grand public presentation on Thursday, September 3, 2026, at the THISDAY Dome, Central Business District, Abuja, where award recipients will be formally honoured before an audience of national leaders, policymakers, captains of industry, diplomats, development partners and other distinguished stakeholders.

The event will also feature the unveiling of the Nigeria Grand Book, a landmark commemorative publication documenting the remarkable achievements of outstanding personalities, institutions and organisations whose contributions have shaped Nigeria’s political, economic, social and developmental journey over the past century.

Follow our WhatsApp Channel

From Digital Rights to Digital Justice: How Nigeria’s courts are preparing for an AI-powered future

A deleted WhatsApp message. A convincing deepfake video. A voice recording generated entirely by artificial intelligence. A hacked database exposing millions of personal records.

Not long ago, these belonged to the realm of science fiction. Today, they are becoming evidence in courtrooms across the world, forcing judges to answer questions that would have seemed unimaginable only a decade ago. Increasingly, the challenge is no longer confined to determining what happened. Courts must also decide whether the digital evidence before them is genuine, manipulated or entirely fabricated.

As artificial intelligence reshapes communication, commerce and public administration, it is transforming the justice system as well. Courts are increasingly called upon to determine disputes involving privacy, cybercrime, digital surveillance, online harassment, data protection and AI-generated evidence. The principles of justice remain unchanged, but the technologies through which rights are exercised—and sometimes violated—are evolving at remarkable speed.

Recognising this reality, DigiCivic Initiative, in partnership with the National Judicial Institute (NJI) and the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), with support from Luminate, convened the Digital Rights Judges Workshop for judicial officers from Nigeria’s South-West geopolitical zone. The programme forms part of a broader effort to strengthen judicial capacity as technology increasingly shapes the legal disputes coming before Nigerian courts.

As the Administrator of the National Judicial Institute, Hon. Justice B.A. Adejumo, OFR, observed, “The judiciary must continue to evolve alongside technology if justice is to remain accessible, relevant and effective in the digital age.” His remarks reflected a growing consensus within legal circles: while technology may change rapidly, public confidence in the administration of justice depends on the judiciary’s ability to understand and respond to those changes.

A New Landscape for the Courts

The digital revolution has altered almost every aspect of daily life. Banking, healthcare, education, employment and even political participation increasingly take place online. Inevitably, the disputes arising from these activities are finding their way into courtrooms.

Judges today may be asked whether an AI-generated recording is authentic, whether deleted social media posts recovered through digital forensics are admissible, or whether facial recognition technology has wrongly identified a suspect. Questions surrounding online surveillance, encrypted communications, digital contracts and data breaches have also become regular features of litigation in many jurisdictions.

What makes these cases distinctive is that they rarely require entirely new rights. More often, they demand that long-established constitutional guarantees—privacy, dignity, freedom of expression, fair hearing and access to justice—be interpreted within technological environments that lawmakers could scarcely have imagined when many statutes were enacted.

It is this evolving legal landscape that informed the design of the workshop.

Learning Through Practical Experience

Rather than approaching digital rights as an abstract policy discussion, the organisers grounded every session in practical courtroom realities.

Participants considered disputes involving artificial intelligence, electronic evidence, cyber investigations, online gender-based violence, digital surveillance and constitutional rights. Throughout the discussions, emphasis remained firmly on judicial decision-making: how should courts approach these cases, what legal principles already exist, and where should caution be exercised as technology continues to evolve?

The conversations repeatedly demonstrated that while technology changes rapidly, the core principles of justice remain remarkably resilient. In many cases, the task before judges is not to invent new law but to apply familiar legal doctrines to unfamiliar facts.

Every Digital Action Leaves a Trail

One of the workshop’s most practical sessions examined digital footprints and their growing significance in litigation.

Many internet users assume that private browsing modes, encrypted messaging applications or Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) provide complete anonymity. Participants were shown why those assumptions are often misplaced. Metadata, server logs, location information, browsing histories and cloud backups frequently survive long after users believe their activities have disappeared.

For the judiciary, understanding these digital traces has become increasingly important. A photograph may contain hidden metadata revealing where and when it was taken. Mobile devices continuously generate location records. Electronic communications often leave forensic evidence capable of corroborating—or contradicting—witness testimony.

As digital technology becomes more deeply embedded in everyday life, evidence is no longer limited to paper documents or eyewitness accounts. Increasingly, it exists in complex digital ecosystems that require judges to understand both technological processes and the legal principles governing admissibility and authenticity.

Artificial Intelligence and the Challenge of Authenticity

Artificial intelligence featured prominently throughout the programme, reflecting the growing concern among courts worldwide about its impact on the administration of justice.

Advances in generative AI have made it possible to create convincing fake videos, cloned voices and fabricated documents with unprecedented ease. This presents courts with an entirely new evidentiary challenge. Visual or audio material that once appeared self-authenticating can no longer be accepted at face value.

Participants examined what legal scholars describe as the “liar’s dividend”—the growing tendency for genuine evidence to be dismissed simply because someone claims it was produced using artificial intelligence. The consequence is a double-edged problem: AI can manufacture false evidence while simultaneously undermining confidence in authentic evidence.

Facilitators emphasised that AI detection software should be approached cautiously. Such tools offer probability rather than certainty, making corroborative evidence, forensic analysis and proper chain-of-custody procedures more important than ever. The message throughout the discussions was that artificial intelligence should enhance the search for truth rather than weaken evidentiary standards.

Privacy in a Data-Driven Society

The workshop also explored the practical implications of Nigeria’s Nigeria Data Protection Act (NDPA) at a time when personal information has become one of the world’s most valuable commodities.

Financial institutions, healthcare providers, educational establishments and government agencies routinely collect enormous quantities of personal data. The legal challenge is no longer whether information will be collected but whether its collection, storage and use comply with constitutional guarantees and statutory safeguards.

Participants examined principles such as lawful processing, informed consent, transparency, purpose limitation and accountability while considering the remedies available where personal information is unlawfully disclosed. These discussions underscored the judiciary’s increasingly important role in balancing technological innovation with the protection of individual rights.

When Online Harm Becomes Real Harm

Another major focus of the programme was Online Gender-Based Violence (OGBV) and the broader question of digital abuse.

The discussions recognised that harassment occurring online frequently produces devastating offline consequences, including psychological trauma, reputational damage, economic loss and threats to personal safety. Participants considered the legal remedies already available under Nigerian law, including the Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act, alongside the practical difficulties involved in preserving electronic evidence before it disappears.

The workshop reinforced an important principle: harm inflicted through digital platforms is no less real because it occurs online.

Preparing the Judiciary for the Future

At the conclusion of the programme, participants identified priorities for strengthening Nigeria’s judicial response to emerging digital challenges. These included expanding judicial education on artificial intelligence and cybercrime, strengthening standards for authenticating digital evidence, reviewing legislative frameworks governing privacy and electronic evidence, accelerating the digitalisation of court processes, and improving secure technological infrastructure across the justice sector.

These recommendations recognise that judicial preparedness cannot be achieved through a single workshop. As technology continues to evolve, continuous education and institutional collaboration will become increasingly important in ensuring that courts remain capable of delivering fair, informed and effective justice.

Justice Must Evolve With Society

The Digital Rights Judges Workshop illustrates how collaboration between DigiCivic Initiative, the National Judicial Institute, the National Human Rights Commission and Luminate is helping prepare Nigeria’s judiciary for the legal realities of the digital age.

Artificial intelligence, digital surveillance, electronic evidence, online platforms and data protection are no longer emerging issues waiting on the horizon. They are already shaping litigation before Nigerian courts. Ensuring that judges possess the knowledge and confidence to address these questions is therefore not simply a matter of technological literacy. It is an investment in the rule of law itself.

As society becomes increasingly digital, the enduring responsibility of the courts remains unchanged: to apply timeless principles of justice fairly, consistently and independently, regardless of how rapidly technology transforms the world around them.

1...101112...1,470Page 11 of 1,470

TIPS

Load more