Good morning,
Dare Olukaiyeja keeps 250 birds in Kogi, and he said, in the flat voice of a man who has done the maths too many times, that feeding them swallows 80 per cent of his operational expenditure. A crate of eggs sells for about ₦6,200. A bag of layer feed that cost ₦7,500 this time last year now costs ₦15,000. He is still in business. Many of his colleagues in Niger, Kogi and Nasarawa are not. They are cutting flocks, selling at losses, closing entirely. This is what a protein crisis looks like before it reaches your plate. It is also what happens when a sector is left to the market and the market decides that a chicken is a luxury.
The same week, the National Assembly voted a ₦100 million commendation to the Super Flamingos for winning the U-17 World Cup. The players deserve it. But a commendation is not a budget line, and the state-run academies and local clubs that produce these children get nothing until a trophy arrives. Meanwhile, the ruling APC has unveiled a 2027 manifesto promising economic stabilisation, stronger institutions and better security, with no costing attached. A manifesto tells you what a party would like to do. A budget tells you who pays and who waits. We have been given the first without the second.
In the Middle Belt, a farmer allegedly poisoned cattle with Ota Piapia insecticide after his crops were damaged. Footage of the dead animals circulated online before any police statement, and the silence since has left room for retaliation and for imitation. The herders lost capital, savings and inheritance. The farmer faces legal and physical risk. This is the oldest wound in that belt, reopened at the speed of a WhatsApp video. Into that silence comes a US House subcommittee hearing later today, Chris Smith’s fourteenth on the subject, examining Nigeria’s efforts to protect Christians and secure the Middle Belt. The framing treats a crisis of land, grazing routes, climate pressure and armed groups as a religious one. A lens that sees only one category will miss most of the victims.
Back home, the National Peace Committee recorded 109 breaches of the peace accord across 26 states and the FCT between August and October: 33 incidents of political violence, 29 cases of misinformation, 19 attacks on campaign activities, 15 incidents of intimidation. Kaduna recorded the highest with nine. A peace accord breached 109 times is not a peace accord. It is a logbook. Meanwhile, a Federal High Court nullified the ADC’s executive leadership council, and Atiku-aligned protesters took to the streets of Abuja. The street can signal grievance. It cannot appoint party officers.
Praise Ugoh won Nigeria’s first Youth Olympic gold in the 400 metres in Dakar, a race she entered almost as an afterthought. Sports authorities have now expanded scouting across state track academies. The timing is sensible. Success breeds interest, and interest breeds funding. The risk is that scouting becomes a short-term talent hunt rather than a long-term system. Academies in states without medalists remain underfunded. Coaches without certification remain uncertified. One gold medal can open doors. It cannot build a track system without year-round money. And in Lagos, the family of the late veteran actor Diewait Ikpechukwu has asked media platforms to stop publishing unapproved archival photos and to respect their privacy. That request is reasonable. Grief is not a public performance. The media should treat it as a binding instruction, not a suggestion.
Put these stories side by side and a pattern emerges. We reward the trophy but not the track. We publish the manifesto but not the budget. We record the breaches but not the prosecutions. We wait for the footage before we publish the facts. We let a farmer’s field and a herder’s herd become a communal problem before the governor speaks. We let a poultry sector contract and call it inflation. The state is present at the ceremony and absent at the pipeline. The farmer in Kogi is not waiting for a manifesto. He is waiting for the price of soya bean to fall. The sprinter in Dakar was not waiting for a scouting programme. She ran because nobody was looking. The family of Diewait Ikpechukwu is not waiting for a media ethics code. They are asking, quietly, for one small mercy. The country that answers them is the country we keep promising to build. It will not be built by commendations or accord signings or hearings in Washington. It will be built by the boring, expensive work of funding the thing before it wins.
Warmly,
Lolade