Good morning,
A transport operator on the Lagos-Ibadan expressway did the maths on Monday. Diesel up. Petrol up. Tyres up. Spare parts up. His fares had already climbed twice this year. Brent crude has now crossed $100 a barrel, and independent marketers have adjusted pump prices again. The subsidy that once absorbed the shock was removed in 2023. Every dollar on the crude price now flows straight to the pump, with the naira’s weakness amplifying the effect. The CPPE estimates that restoring a universal subsidy at this level would cost about ₦152.5 billion daily. That is not viable. So the cost lands on the man in the bus, the woman buying tomatoes, the small business running a generator. Winners: domestic refiners and hedged marketers. Losers: everyone else.
While the pump bites, Edo is preparing for 2027. The final INEC list is out. Of 77 candidates for National Assembly seats, only nine are women. That is 11.7 per cent! The Senate field is 19.2 per cent female. The House of Representatives manages just 7.8 per cent. Only three candidates are under 35. No candidate is listed under the Persons with Disabilities classification. Nigeria ranks 181st out of 193 countries for women in national legislatures. Edo’s ballot is not a mirror of the state. It is a mirror of the establishment that controls it.
In Abuja, the jollof rice has become the story. A video shows APC supporters receiving plates of jollof rice from a branded campaign bus outside the Transcorp Hilton, one of the capital’s most expensive addresses. The meal is not illegal. Nigerian electoral law prohibits vote buying, but enforcement is weak. The video captures a political economy where a plate of rice substitutes for a policy on hunger. No party has a monopoly on the practice. The meal is free. The vote is not.
On the education front, unity schools have shut down. Education unions have closed Federal Unity Colleges nationwide over the proposed concession of King’s College, Lagos. The school, founded in 1909, is one of the country’s oldest. The unions fear privatisation. The Minister of Education says workers will keep their jobs. Gates are locked from Anambra to Enugu. Thousands of students, many from poor families, are at home.
Meanwhile, the NHRC logged 297,943 rights complaints in August alone. The figure is staggering. Insecurity dominated, with renewed attacks in Benue and Niger. The commission can count the abuses. It cannot stop them. And on the road, the Eruku–Egbe federal highway linking Kwara and Kogi is collapsing. Farmers cannot move produce. Fares are rising. The complaints are old. The repairs are not coming, and in Lagos, a ₦200 million G-Wagon survived a collision with a truck. The SUV’s grille was crushed, the bumper wrecked. The driver walked away. The truck driver did not. A pedestrian or a keke rider in the same collision would not have had that option. The road is the problem, not the vehicle.
Crude past $100. Nine women out of 77. Jollof rice from a campaign bus. Unity schools shut. 297,943 rights complaints. A highway rotting. A luxury car surviving what most commuters would not. These are not separate stories. They are the same story: a country where the cost of living rises, where representation is an afterthought, where handouts replace policy, and where survival depends on the car you can afford. The question is whether we will build a country that works for everyone, or simply keep passing the bill.
Warmly,
Lolade