By Aisha Gambo

In Gabari village, Kufena, Zaria Local Government Area of Kaduna State, young Halira Nuhu (not real name) is hawking “Fura da Nono”, a meal made from cow milk and millet, during school hours.

Nuhu dreams of becoming a doctor, but her condition would not allow her to accomplish that dream.

In her village, boys’ education is prioritised, while girls are sent to hawk or married off early.

At 12, Nuhu was given out in marriage to her cousin.

This, indeed, reflects the reality of many girls in her community.

“I was married off at the age of 12, I’m now 15 and I have one son; in my tradition parents choose spouses for their children and girl child education is not prioritised, we go hawking.

“I attended only primary school and stopped because my father was not financially stable; so, my mother said I should hawk before a befitting spouse is chosen for me,” she said.

Similarly, Saude Maude (not real name), a resident of Hanwa, Zaria, got married at the age of 13.

As an orphan who lost her father while she was still a baby, Maude could not finish secondary school due to poverty.

“It was my mother who took care of me and she couldn’t pay for my school fees after JSS 3. So when I got a suitor, I was married off; I was devastated but there was nothing I could do,” she laments.

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), about 7.6 million girls in Nigeria are out of school, including 3.9 million at the primary level and 3.7 million in junior secondary school.

UNICEF further reports that more than half of girls of basic education age are not enrolled.

Evidence from various studies also indicates significant dropout rates between primary and junior secondary levels.

Experts, however, attribute this trend to a combination of factors, including poverty, early marriage, unintended pregnancy, gender-based violence, limited awareness, and inadequate parental support.

Consequently, these challenges continue to restrict many girls’ access to education and contribute to higher dropout rates, especially as they transition from primary to secondary school.

A report by Save the Children says 78 per cent of girls in the northern region of Nigeria are married before the age of 18, while 44 per cent of girls are married before their 18th birthday across the country.

In Kaduna State, the School Census Report revealed that 25 per cent of adolescent girls dropped out of school due to factors such as early marriage, insecurity, poverty, among others.

In response to this development, the Kaduna State Government developed an Education Policy in 2019, which made provision for Second Chance Education (SCE).

The state also developed a 10-year Education Sector Plan (ESP), named Kaduna State 2019–2029 Education Sector Strategic Plan.

The plan is a comprehensive and strategic framework developed with the support of development partners to guide the planning, implementation, and evaluation of education policies and programmes.

The Director of Planning, Kaduna State Ministry of Education, Salisu Lawal, stated that SCE is being implemented with support from development partners like the Adolescent Girls Initiative for Learning and Empowerment (AGILE) for girls who dropped out due to marriage or pregnancy.

Recently, Kaduna State validated the Gender in Education Policy to tackle structural barriers such as safety, access, and retention that disproportionately affect girls.

The policy is aimed at addressing the specific needs of male and female learners across different age groups and communities.

Notably, the initiative goes beyond general assumptions about gender and instead focuses on how education can be delivered effectively to different categories of learners.

Second Chance Education is one component of the broader policy, which supports adolescent married girls and mothers with learning materials, uniforms, and conditional cash transfers to motivate the girls and their families.

Zainab Maina-Lukat, the Technical Assistant on Education Systems Strengthening, AGILE project, said the policy was designed to address inequalities and barriers within the education sector.

She said the policy proposes practical solutions to support young mothers and female teachers, including the establishment of early childhood care centres within schools to enable them continue their education or careers.

According to her, the policy recognises that learners face different challenges depending on their age, gender, and circumstances.

The policy also highlights disparities in academic progression, especially in science education.

While about half of girls in private schools transition into science streams, the figure is significantly lower in public schools.

Albeit these challenges, being married and giving birth did not stop Nuhu and Maude, who dropped out of school due to tradition and poverty, from pursuing their dreams.

Nuhu has now returned to school and is in JSS one through the SCE supported by AGILE.

Her husband and father gave their consent for her to continue her education after a mobilising officer enlightened them on the programme.

“My father is excited that I am going back to school and my husband supported me with uniform and learning materials,” she says.

However, the major challenge Nuhu faces is balancing married life and education.

As a nursing mother with the zeal to learn, she has to keep her 11-month-old baby at her in-laws’ place before going to school.

“Nobody will take care of my baby when I’m in class and I want to concentrate, so I have to keep him with them,” she said.

Transportation from her husband’s house to school is another challenge.

Nevertheless, Nuhu wakes up early and treks for 40 minutes to get to school.

Returning to school has given her a sense of responsibility.

She regrets marrying early, saying she still feels she is not ripe for marriage at 15.

She now hopes to become a girl child advocate, where she will sensitise and empower young girls to complete at least Senior Secondary School before marriage.

Likewise, Maude, now 17 with two children, has returned to school and is in SS1, dreaming of becoming a journalist.

She said she would work hard to ensure her children get better education before marriage.

Ummi Bukar, the Programme Director, Participatory Communication for Gender Development Initiative (PAGED Initiative), says extending Nigeria’s Universal Basic Education (UBE) policy to 12 years would improve access to secondary education, especially for girls.

“Extending the policy to senior secondary education would ensure that girls remain in school longer and emerge as more productive members of society.

“It is not enough to create programmes; they must reflect the realities of the target group. Many young mothers cannot return to school because there are no support systems such as childcare or flexible learning hours,” she says.

She, therefore, called for stronger enforcement of existing laws, increased investment in education, and inclusive policies that address the diverse realities across states.

In conclusion, as married adolescent girls like Nuhu and Maude return to the classroom, it is necessary that they receive the support systems required to thrive. (NAN)

By Joan Odafe

In the quiet farmlands of Chibok in northeastern Nigeria, the steady rhythm of women cracking groundnuts and sorting harvests now carries a meaning deeper than livelihood.

For the mothers whose daughters were abducted during the 2014 school attack by terrorists, the work has become both survival and healing.

What began as a response to grief has gradually grown into a small but meaningful enterprise, one rooted in farming, peanut processing and the determination of mothers to rebuild their lives and secure a future for their children.

Their story is documented in the film, ‘Mothers of Chibok’, by Nigerian filmmaker, Joel Kachi Benson, which moves beyond the moment of the abduction to focus on the everyday lives of the women who continue to live with its consequences.

In the film, the camera lingers on the rhythm of daily labour: women tending farms, negotiating land prices, planting corn and groundnuts, and later selling the groundnuts that have become central to their community enterprise.

One scene captures a mother negotiating to rent farmland. The landowner initially demands N100,000 but after persistent bargaining the woman brings the price down to N35,000, a small victory that reflects her determination to keep farming in spite of financial hardship.

Groundnuts have become the backbone of their livelihood. After harvest, the women sort, roast and process the peanuts, adding value before they are sold.

The enterprise not only sustains their farming activities but also provides income to support their families and pay school fees for their children.

Scenes in the documentary show women sitting together in courtyards and fields, cracking shells and drying harvests under the sun.

The work is demanding but it carries a quiet sense of solidarity among the mothers.

For many of them, motherhood remains the strongest source of motivation.

In one scene, a mother sits with her children during a home lesson, gently encouraging them through their reading.

“Myself well done. Try it another day. Mango and banana for Mau,” she sings as a reward for a lesson completed.

In spite of the trauma that reshaped their lives, education remains central in the community.

The mothers continue to send their children to school, determined that fear will not define the future of the next generation.

The film also captures moments that reveal the emotional weight many of the women still carry.

In one poignant sequence, a mother receives a phone call informing her that her daughter has been rescued and will soon return home.

Earlier in the film, she had been shown carefully arranging her daughter’s clothes, preserving them as if preparing for the day she will come back.

Elsewhere, another mother breaks down after learning that her daughter was not among those rescued.

Through these moments, the documentary presents the mothers not as symbols of tragedy but as women navigating grief, hope and everyday survival.

Benson said the film took about three years to complete, allowing the production team to build trust within the community and document realities that rarely make headlines.

“When you spend time, you see things,” he said.

The producer explained that the intention of the film was to shift attention toward the strength and resilience of the women rather than presenting them solely through the lens of tragedy.

“The idea was to show them as strong, resilient women who are rebuilding their lives and supporting their families,” he said.

Beyond the film, the mothers’ groundnut enterprise is gradually reaching wider markets.

Their products are now available at a few outlets, including ‘The Gather House’, a concept store that showcases women-owned African brands and products with strong community stories.

By connecting the Chibok women’s produce to urban consumers, the initiative is helping transform their small-scale processing into a sustainable livelihood.

For the mothers, every bag of processed peanuts sold represents more than income. It reflects their determination to rebuild stability for their families and create economic security for their children.

Their story carries particular resonance during moments such as International Women’s Day and Mother’s Day, occasions that celebrate women’s strength and the enduring power of motherhood.

In Chibok, those ideals are lived daily in the fields and courtyards where the women work.

Through farming, enterprise and collective resilience, the Mothers of Chibok are gradually transforming a painful chapter of history into a story of dignity, survival and hope. (NAN)

By Ebuka Ukoh

If Nigeria is serious about reform, it must study not only who the late Right Reverend

Jesse Jackson was, but also how he operated. He did not merely protest injustice; he built lasting institutions to sustain his quest for justice.

Born in 1941, Jackson emerged from the civil rights movement under the leadership of Dr Martin Luther King, Jr.

He marched in Selma. He organised in Chicago. He founded Operation PUSH and later the Rainbow Coalition. In 1984 and 1988, he ran for President of the United States, becoming the first African American to mount a serious national campaign and win millions of votes across racial lines.

He did not win the presidency.

But he definitely expanded the imagination of who could lead. And sometimes that is how structural change begins.

Jackson understood something that Nigeria is still struggling to internalise. Protest without structure is noisemaking. Structure without moral vision is empty. A nation requires both structure and vision.

Architecture of Moral Language

Jackson brought moral language into the centre of political discourse. He spoke of dignity, economic justice, inclusion, and accountability. He challenged corporate

America and government policy with the vocabulary of conscience.

Nigeria is deeply religious. Churches and mosques overflow. Sermons are powerful. Yet our politics often lacks moral restraint. We speak the language of faith but operate the mechanics of patronage. We invoke God but rarely demand ethical clarity from those in office.

Jackson’s example forces a question. What would Nigerian politics look like if leaders were pressed not only on strategy and tribe but on justice and responsibility? What if we evaluated leadership not just by who benefits, but by who is protected?

Coalitions Across Difference

Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition was not a slogan. It was a deliberate attempt to unite

Black Americans, Latinos, labour unions, farmers, and low-income communities under a shared platform of economic and social justice. It required negotiation. It required compromise. It required maturity.

Nigeria is a federation of identities – ethnic, religious, and regional. Yet our coalitions are often temporary arrangements built for elections, not for transformation. They dissolve after victory. They fracture under pressure. We have ethnic champions. We have party loyalists and chieftains. We have influencers…but we lack bridge builders who can gather citizens around shared interests rather than shared enemies.

Jackson’s campaigns proved that diversity is not a weakness. It becomes a weakness only when leaders exploit it instead of organising it. Jackson understood something many movements forget: protest is emotional energy, but institutions are stored power.

Nigeria has seen this before. The resistance that followed the annulment of the June 12, 1993, election did not survive on outrage alone. It survived because labour unions, pro-democracy coalitions, student movements, journalists, religious leaders, and civil society groups worked in uneasy alignment. The pro-democracy movement of the 1990s was not a hashtag. It was infrastructure. It was a coalition. It was architecture.

Without that web of organised actors, military rule might have endured longer.

Even the fuel subsidy protests years later revealed the same pattern. When labour federations coordinated action, the nation listened. When the organisation fractured, momentum faded. History keeps teaching the same lesson. Energy without structure exhausts itself. That is the lesson Nigeria must not ignore.

From Protest to Policy

The civil rights movement did not end with marches. It produced legislation. The Civil

Rights Act of 1964. The Voting Rights Act of 1965. Structural outcomes followed sustained pressure.

Nigeria trends outrage quickly, hashtags rise, emotions flare. Then the moment fades.

What often does not follow is institutional design, policy literacy, electoral strategy, budget scrutiny, and local organising.

Jackson moved from the streets to the ballot. He did not see activism and governance as enemies. He saw them as stages of the same struggle. Nigeria does not need fewer passionate voices. It needs more disciplined movements. It needs citizens who understand that democracy is not event-based. It is process-based.

What made Jesse Jackson’s life particularly instructive was not merely his charisma. It was the ecosystem that produced him.

He emerged from a dense network of Black institutions in America that did not operate in isolation. The African Methodist Episcopal Church laid spiritual and organizational foundations. Prince Hall Freemasons built mutual aid networks and leadership pipelines. Historically Black Colleges and Universities trained generations of professionals. The Divine Nine fraternities and sororities cultivated bonds of service and activism. The NAACP reshaped legal strategy. The Urban League advanced economic mobility.

These were not parallel stories. They were interdependent systems. Leadership moved between them. Resources circulated among them. Victories in one strengthened the others. Remove one pillar, and the structure weakens. This is precisely the argument of our joint bookwork, Built By The Ancestors. Most historical accounts treat such institutions as separate chapters. They are not. They are ecosystems. The durability of a people rests not on one hero but on coordinated pillars of faith, education, economics, law, and civic action.

Jackson was not an accident. He was the architecture itself. Nigeria must ask itself an uncomfortable question: Where is our architecture?

Economic Justice as Stability

Jackson consistently linked race and poverty to economic exclusion. He argued that political rights without economic access produce fragile democracies.

Nigeria is learning that lesson the hard way. Youth unemployment, insecurity, inflation, and regional instability are not isolated crises. They are symptoms of exclusion. When large segments of the population feel economically locked out, frustration becomes combustible. Economic justice is not charity. It is national security.

Hope as Strategy

Perhaps Jackson’s most enduring contribution was not a policy but a posture. He believed in what he called the “architecture of hope.” Not optimism detached from reality. Not a denial of hardship. But structured belief that systems can be changed when people organise deliberately.

Nigeria often oscillates between two extremes: Cynicism and magical thinking. Either nothing will ever change, or change will come through a single election or saviour.

History suggests something different. Change requires sustained effort. It requires a coalition. It requires moral clarity paired with institutional work.

Movements, Not Moments

Jesse Jackson’s presidential campaigns did not end racism. But they shifted representation. They expanded political possibilities. They prepared the ground for future breakthroughs.

Nigeria must learn this lesson. Not every attempt at reform will succeed immediately.

Not every campaign will win. But disciplined participation builds capacity. Capacity builds influence, and Influence builds reform.

We cannot afford to be a country of moments only. Moments trend, but movements transform.

If Nigeria desires a different future, it must cultivate leaders who can speak with moral courage and organise with strategic patience. It must nurture citizens who understand that democracy demands more than applause or outrage. It demands structure.

Before we ask why the system does not work, we must ask whether we are building systems strong enough to hold our hopes.

Jackson’s life offers Nigeria a mirror. A nation does not change because it feels injustice. It changes because it organises against it. And that work begins long before the next election cycle. We have voices. We have anger. We have talent. What we have not consistently built is a system strong enough to outlive any one leader.

Jackson’s life reminds us that movements mature when they become institutions. And institutions endure when they are interdependent.

Before we ask whether Nigeria will produce another charismatic reformer, we must ask whether Nigeria is building the pillars that can sustain one. Nations do not rise on moments. They rise on structures. And without structure, even the loudest cry fades into silence.

Mr Ukoh, an alumnus of the American University of Nigeria, Yola, and PhD student at Columbia University, writes from New York.