…Thought-provoking voices on solutions to Nigeria’s developmental challenges!
Yaba School of Thought Weekly Digest (Monday, October 19 – Friday, October 23, 2026)
Weekly Summary:
Nigeria’s development challenges are often discussed as separate problems: corruption, inadequate public services, unemployment, rising living costs and the failure of political leadership. This week’s Yaba School of Thought articles suggest that these difficulties are connected by a deeper question: how effectively does the country translate its values, policies and public resources into better lives for its citizens? Edem Dorothy Ossai examines the family as an early setting for learning responsibility and tolerance, while Prof Duro Oni draws attention to the continuing struggle for reliable water and sanitation. Their arguments begin in different places but arrive at a shared concern: a society cannot flourish when the conditions that support human dignity remain neglected.
The week’s contributions also examine the distance between what government promises and what it delivers. Oyinkan Teriba questions the return to fuel-price concessions when the justification for subsidy reform was partly to create room for more effective and equitable social protection. Dr Richard Ikiebe challenges political competition organised around personalities, ethnic and religious identities, rather than a common programme of national renewal. Deji Olatoye takes the argument into economic planning, showing how ministries and agencies can meet their individual targets while failing to produce the jobs and improved living standards that development plans promise. Together, these articles shift attention from announcements and administrative activity to outcomes that citizens can verify.
Prof Francis Egbokhare’s reflection on the purpose of power provides a moral framework for the week’s discussions, while Ogie Eboigbe’s examination of Navi Pillay’s Nobel Peace Prize recognition broadens the debate to international justice and Africa’s contribution to global affairs. Both invite readers to look beyond prestige and the acquisition of authority to the responsibilities that accompany them. The central lesson is that progress should not be measured solely by economic statistics, election victories, policy declarations or international recognition. It should also be judged by whether institutions protect rights, public services work, opportunities expand and people can live with greater security and dignity.
Common Thread:
The strongest connection across this week’s articles is the distinction between the existence of institutions and their actual contribution to society. Families may remain intact without teaching respect or responsibility. Water projects may be announced or constructed without providing dependable services. Ministries may fulfil separate mandates without creating jobs. Elections may produce a new government without changing the institutions and incentives that shape public life. In each case, the appearance of activity can conceal a failure to achieve the intended result. The relevant question is not simply whether an institution exists or a policy has been introduced, but whether it performs the function for which it was established.
This distinction also exposes the limits of government responses that are immediate, visible and politically attractive but do not resolve underlying problems. Fuel discounts may ease some pressure temporarily, yet they cannot substitute for a dependable social protection system. A development plan may set ambitious employment targets, but those targets will remain aspirational unless decisions about skills, finance, infrastructure, trade and industrial policy work together. Similarly, civic values cannot be sustained through appeals to family unity alone if children encounter violence, discrimination or impunity at home and in the wider society. Lasting improvement requires institutions to work together, public money to follow stated priorities, and implementation to be measured against outcomes rather than intentions.
Ultimately, the week raises a question of accountability. Who benefits from public decisions, who bears their costs, and who is answerable when promised results fail to materialise? Answering these questions requires transparent targets, credible evidence, sustained funding and consequences for persistent underperformance. It also requires citizens, journalists, researchers, universities and civic organisations to scrutinise claims rather than accept political language as proof of progress. The common thread is therefore not simply that Nigeria needs better leadership or more ambitious policies. It needs a stronger connection between public purpose and institutional performance. Power, planning and public resources acquire legitimacy when they improve people’s lives.
Article Reviews:
Monday, October 19; “Nigeria must go back to recommending family policies nationwide” — Edem Dorothy Ossai
Ossai argues that Nigeria’s national development debate should pay greater attention to the family as one of the earliest environments in which children learn responsibility, fairness, tolerance and respect for others. She cautions against assuming that preserving the family as an institution automatically strengthens society, since households can transmit prejudice and impunity as readily as positive values. Her proposed response includes accessible parenting education, support for families facing economic pressures, stronger child protection systems and deliberate efforts to teach civic values. The article’s important contribution is to connect personal upbringing with the wider social environment, while recognising that families cannot bear sole responsibility for problems also shaped by schools, institutions and economic conditions. Its challenge to policymakers is to treat family support as a sustained investment, with adequate funding and accessible services, rather than an occasional intervention.
https://businessday.ng/pro/article/nigeria-must-go-back-to-recommending-family-policies-nationwide/
Article 2: Monday, October 19; “For millions of Nigerians, water and sanitation remain out of reach” — Prof Duro Oni
Oni draws attention to the daily struggle of households that lack reliable access to safe drinking water, adequate sanitation and hygiene facilities. Using figures attributed to National WASH NORM and a 2024 assessment by the Nigerian Institute of Water Engineers, the article highlights the scale of deprivation and the disparities between communities, including the fact that improved access to water does not necessarily translate into adequate sanitation. It also examines the consequences for public health, education, household productivity and the disproportionate burden on women and children. The discussion of SURWASH and community-led sanitation approaches shows that progress depends on more than infrastructure spending: projects must be properly implemented, maintained and supported by local participation. The policy challenge is to make functioning services, rather than the number of projects announced or completed, the principal measure of success.
Tuesday, October 20; “The progressive spirit of reform is in retreat” — Oyinkan Teriba
Teriba examines the tension between the removal of petrol subsidies and the government’s continuing reliance on fuel-price concessions to ease economic hardship. The article accepts that the former subsidy was poorly targeted and costly but argues that its removal created an obligation to establish a more equitable and dependable system of social protection. It draws attention to the risks of using discounts, foregone public revenue and deferred supplier obligations to provide relief through the petroleum supply chain, where benefits may not reach the poorest households in proportion to their needs. The discussion also raises a practical question about transport support: even when operators receive a discount, passengers may not receive the corresponding reduction in fares. Teriba’s central argument is that reform cannot be judged by the abolition of one policy alone. Its credibility depends on whether the government builds a transparent alternative that reaches vulnerable households, responds to economic shocks and can be sustained beyond the immediate political cycle.
https://businessday.ng/pro/article/the-progressive-spirit-of-reform-is-in-retreat/
Wednesday, October 21; “Nigerian ‘Electoral Democracy’ and the crippling politics of personalities” — Dr Richard Ikiebe
Ikiebe questions the tendency to reduce Nigerian democracy to a contest over who should occupy public office, often shaped by personality, pedigree, ethnicity and religion. With the 2027 elections approaching, he argues that discussions about opposition unity and candidate selection risk displacing the more consequential debate about the programmes candidates intend to implement. His reflection on the 2015 election and the subsequent Buhari administration illustrates the distinction between changing political leadership and transforming the institutions that sustain insecurity, patronage and poor public services. The article calls for parties to define their priorities, explain how they will deliver them and accept measurable standards against which citizens can assess their performance. Its wider contribution is to argue that elections should authorise a programme of public obligations, not be treated as an achievement in themselves. The challenge is to make policy substance, institutional accountability and equal citizenship central to political competition.
Article 2: Wednesday, October 21; “Policy coordination problems that explain why Nigeria keeps losing the jobs plot” — Deji Olatoye
Olatoye examines why Nigeria repeatedly falls short of its employment ambitions despite having development plans that identify job creation as a central objective. His review of the National Development Plan 2021–2025 highlights the gap between its targets for economic growth, employment and poverty reduction and the outcomes reported during the period. The article argues that jobs are not produced by a single ministry or agency: they depend on connected decisions about education, skills, infrastructure, finance, trade, immigration, procurement and industrial development. It also identifies a more subtle failure, in which agencies may coordinate their activities but inadvertently undermine national employment objectives through routine administrative decisions. Olatoye proposes sector-specific jobs and skills strategies, alongside an employment test for relevant approvals and clearly assigned institutional responsibility. The essential lesson is that government should assess its performance by the combined effects of its decisions on employment and household welfare, not merely by the separate achievements reported by individual departments.
Thursday, October 22: “What is power for? Leadership beyond the acquisition of power” — Prof Francis Egbokhare
Egbokhare approaches governance through a philosophical question: what is power for? He argues that authority loses its legitimacy when separated from justice, purpose and responsibility to the common good. The article challenges the assumption that technological advancement, economic growth, wealth accumulation or institutional expansion automatically amount to human progress. Such achievements matter, he suggests, only when they create conditions in which people can live with dignity, security and meaningful opportunities. His reflections extend beyond political leadership to businesses and citizens, asking how each should understand its obligations to society. Although the argument is primarily philosophical rather than a programme of specific policy interventions, it provides an ethical standard against which the week’s more practical proposals can be considered. It reminds readers that the purpose of governance is not simply to administer resources or exercise authority but to ensure that institutions serve human wellbeing.
https://businessday.ng/pro/article/what-is-power-for-leadership-beyond-the-acquisition-of-power/
Friday, October 23: “Another Nobel Peace Prize for Africa, another miss for Trump” — Ogie Eboigbe
Eboigbe examines the reported 2026 Nobel Peace Prize recognition of South African human rights lawyer and judge Navi Pillay, using her career to discuss the relationship between peace, international law and accountability for human rights abuses. The article contrasts the Nobel Committee’s emphasis on legal institutions and the prosecution of grave crimes with the more personalised public pursuit of international recognition associated with US President Donald Trump. It also places Pillay’s work within Africa’s wider contribution to international justice, recalling other African Nobel laureates whose recognition has been connected to political freedom, reconciliation and human achievement. The article’s strongest theme is that peace requires more than public ceremonies or claims of personal accomplishment: its foundations include institutions capable of confronting abuses and upholding legal principles. Pillay’s career also challenges portrayals of Africa principally as a recipient of international assistance, highlighting the continent’s contribution to the ideas and institutions that shape global affairs.
https://businessday.ng/pro/article/what-is-power-for-leadership-beyond-the-acquisition-of-power/
Closing Reflection:
This week’s contributions return repeatedly to a question that should sit at the centre of Nigeria’s development debate: what changes in people’s lives when a policy is announced, a budget is approved, a project is completed or a leader takes office? The answer cannot be found in declarations alone. It must be visible in the household that can raise children with support, the community with safe water and sanitation, the vulnerable family receiving reliable assistance, the worker finding productive employment and the citizen whose rights are protected by functioning institutions.
The task is to close the gap between intention and outcome. That requires governments to coordinate their decisions, disclose results, maintain essential infrastructure and explain when targets are missed. It also requires political parties to offer credible programmes, public institutions to accept responsibility and citizens to insist on evidence. Leadership earns its value not simply by acquiring power but by using it to create the conditions in which people can live more securely, participate more fully and flourish with dignity.
The measure of progress is not how much the government promises, but how reliably society delivers.
