By Franca Ofili

When Amina Peter’s fever persisted for days, her family initially assumed it was malaria, bought over-the-counter medication, and waited for her to recover.

It was only when her weakness grew severely worse that they finally took her to a hospital for testing.

Her experience reflects a dangerous reality confronting Nigerians as Lassa fever continues spreading quietly, often beginning with symptoms that resemble familiar illnesses, which leads people to delay treatment until severe complications emerge nationwide.

The Nigeria Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (NCDC) reported 14 new confirmed cases during epidemiological week 33, bringing cumulative infections in 2026 to 1,035 nationwide, with deaths reaching 252 in Nigeria.

The latest infections, recorded between Aug. 10 and Aug. 16, occurred in Ondo, Bauchi, Edo and Benue States, reinforcing the concentration of transmission in several repeatedly affected states across affected communities nationwide.

More worrying is the rising case fatality rate, which reached 24.4 per cent by week 33, compared with 18.6 per cent during the corresponding period in 2025 throughout vulnerable communities.

Behind those statistics are households, patients, health workers and communities navigating a disease that can move silently from rodents into homes, then potentially between infected people across vulnerable communities nationwide.

Lassa fever is a viral haemorrhagic disease caused by Lassa virus, with multimammate rats serving as the principal reservoir and transmitting infection through urine, droppings, saliva and contaminated materials across communities.

For many families, however, the greatest danger may not initially appear to be rodents. It can begin with an ordinary fever, headache, weakness or stomach discomfort mistaken for malaria.

Dr Eno Onen, a Community Physician at University College Hospital, Ibadan, said early Lassa fever symptoms were often mild and easily mistaken for malaria, requiring heightened clinical suspicion across affected areas.

He said people should become concerned when fever persists beyond 48 hours without responding to malaria treatment, particularly where rodent exposure or contact with suspected patients has occurred within affected communities.

“My advice is this: if you experience fever lasting more than 48 hours that does not respond to malaria treatment, don’t manage it at home.”

Such advice is crucial because delayed diagnosis can allow disease to progress from nonspecific symptoms into bleeding, facial swelling, breathing difficulty, confusion, seizures and potentially fatal complications within communities facing transmission.

Onen explained that transmission occurred primarily through contact with infected multimammate rats, contaminated food and water, household surfaces, or airborne particles generated while cleaning contaminated environments throughout communities facing continued transmission.

“Together, these rodent-to-human routes account for an estimated 90 percent to 95 per cent of human Lassa infections,” Onen said.

The remaining infections can occur through contact with blood, urine, saliva and other body fluids of infected people, creating particular risks in healthcare settings where infection prevention is inadequate across Nigeria.

Yet the disease does not exist independently of Nigeria’s changing environment.

Dr Ekpereonne Esu, Associate Director of Cochrane Nigeria, links increasing transmission partly to ecological disruption across Nigeria’s affected states today.

Esu said deforestation, biodiversity loss and changing rainfall patterns could alter rodent behaviour and populations, increasing opportunities for infected animals to enter homes and encounter people within vulnerable households and communities.

Seasonal rainfall, he explained, could influence movement of multimammate rats, driving them toward human dwellings when environmental conditions make surrounding habitats less suitable for their survival across vulnerable communities nationwide today.

“Deforestation adds another dimension because expanding farmland into forested areas can create favourable conditions for rodents while simultaneously reducing natural habitats and disrupting ecological balance across many vulnerable communities nationwide today.

“Biodiversity loss, caused by human activities, reduces natural predators that ordinarily control rat populations, allowing the rodents to multiply and spread infections more easily,” Esu said.

Poor housing can magnify the danger. Cracks, gaps, leaking roofs, poorly fitted doors and inadequate waste management provide rodents with opportunities to enter homes and contaminate living spaces across vulnerable communities.

The TETFund-sponsored Mega Research Project on Lassa fever similarly identified poor housing, rodent infestation, food contamination, leaking roofs and poorly fitted doors as important environmental risk factors throughout vulnerable communities today.

Researchers therefore increasingly view Lassa fever through a One Health lens, recognising that human health, animal populations, environmental conditions, agriculture, housing and sanitation are interconnected in transmission across Nigeria’s affected communities.

This approach matters because controlling Lassa fever cannot depend solely on hospitals. Communities must reduce exposure before infection occurs, while laboratories and health facilities must detect cases rapidly throughout affected states.

By week 33, NCDC reported confirmed infections in 23 states and 117 local government areas, demonstrating that although transmission is concentrated, the national risk remains substantial across Nigeria’s affected states today.

Bauchi, Ondo, Taraba, Benue and Edo States accounted for 87 per cent of cumulative confirmed cases by week 33, making sustained interventions in these states especially important within vulnerable households and communities.

The pattern has fluctuated rather than followed a straight upward trajectory. Week 32 recorded four new cases, down from 17 in week 31, before rising again during week 33 nationwide today.

Earlier figures tell a similar story. In week 30, 17 new cases were recorded, after 20 cases in week 29, while week 28 registered 25 following 14 cases during week 27.

These fluctuations can create a false sense of reassurance if declining weekly numbers are interpreted as disappearance. Lassa fever remains active whenever new infections continue occurring across communities across many communities.

The persistently high fatality rate also deserves attention because it indicates that diagnosis and treatment challenges remain significant despite improvements in surveillance, clinical awareness and outbreak response within communities facing transmission.

People aged from 21 years and 30 years remain the predominant affected group in recent NCDC reports, while research findings suggest adults between 20 and 40 face substantial exposure across affected areas.

The research team attributed this exposure partly to farming and outdoor activities, where people may encounter rodents, contaminated environments or food stored under conditions that encourage infestation across affected communities nationwide.

At Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital in Bauchi, researchers are examining survivors to understand why some people recover while others develop severe disease or die across vulnerable communities nationwide today.

Prof. Alash’le Abimiku, Executive Director of the International Research Centre of Excellence and Institute of Human Virology Nigeria, said the work could support development of an effective vaccine within affected communities.

“We want to study survivors and understand what made them survive,” Abimiku said, explaining that researchers were examining immune responses and different Lassa virus lineages circulating in Nigeria across vulnerable communities.”

The project also includes community engagement, clinician training, improved diagnosis and laboratory investigation, recognising that scientific discoveries become valuable only when translated into practical public health action throughout vulnerable communities today.

Abimiku noted that Lassa fever was no longer strictly seasonal, with infections now recorded throughout the year, strengthening the case for continuous surveillance and prevention activities throughout communities facing continued transmission.

“What is the shortest route toward developing a vaccine? How can we ensure that the burden on our people is reduced?” Echono asked during the presentation of research findings throughout affected states.

He said TETFund would escalate validated findings to relevant authorities, including NCDC and the Federal Ministry of Health, potentially strengthening the case for a vaccine development centre across Nigeria’s affected communities.

The Federal University of Health Sciences, Otukpo, received a N250 million Mega Research Grant for the project, generating evidence on epidemiology, diagnosis, management and control of Lassa fever across many communities.

Principal Investigator Joseph Okopi said Nigeria bore the highest global burden, estimating that between 5,000 and 10,000 people die annually and underscoring the urgency of stronger interventions across Nigeria’s affected states today.

The study investigated antibody prevalence, rodent vectors, transmission patterns and associated risks across five states, with Benue recording the highest prevalence of Lassa fever antibodies among surveyed populations across affected areas.

Clinical findings from 1,266 participants and 392 suspected cases investigated in Benue and Kogi produced 43 PCR-confirmed infections, including 25 in Benue and 18 in Kogi within vulnerable households and communities.

Audu Onyemocho, Prof. of Community Medicine and a Consultant in Public Health,  said bleeding, older age and seizures emerged as strong predictors of mortality, providing useful evidence for clinicians identifying patients requiring urgent and intensive management within communities facing transmission.

Defeating Lassa fever, experts say, will require science matched with everyday action: stronger laboratories, better housing, cleaner environments, informed communities, protected health workers and sustained investment in vaccine development within affected communities.(NAN)

By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

The beginning of the campaign season for Nigeria’s presidential election in 1979 was dramatic. Michael Ani, then chairman of the Federal Electoral Commission (FEDECO), ushered in the season by announcing the disqualification of two of the five presidential candidates.

While their peers and competitors in the other parties were off campaigning, Nnamdi Azikiwe and Aminu Kano detoured to the courts to determine their eligibility to be on the ballot.

The uncertainty about whether either candidate would be on the ballot all but doomed the ambitions of Azikiwe and Aminu Kano in 1979. It was the first proof that courts were significant actors in determining the destination of the ultimate political prize in Nigeria.

As Nigeria enters yet another presidential campaign season, the nature of both political campaigns and the judicial role in them has very much evolved since 1979. The digital ecosystem has become a major site and market for political campaigns. For the first time, Artificial Intelligence will be a major factor in the 2026/27 campaign season.

Despite these new and exciting developments, the most significant evolution in political campaigns in Nigeria in the nearly five decades since 1979 is that the judiciary has become both a major public for political campaigns and the ultimate determinant of the destination of political power.

Democracy may be about choices and decisions by citizens in theory. As practised in Nigeria, however, citizens are mostly spectators. They do not decide winners and losers. Nigeria’s judges alone have the final votes. Politicians who do not play to the judicial gallery in Nigeria find that they do not have a snowball’s chance in hell of sniffing a path to office or power.

How so? It used to be that every election cycle comprised two seasons: pre-election and post-election season. In 2007, the Supreme Court effectively up-ended this dichotomy.

In the party primaries to select its candidate ahead of the governorship election in Rivers State in that year, Rotimi Amaechi, the Speaker of the State House of Assembly, emerged winner. However, the party hierarchy in Abuja led by the president, Olusegun Obasanjo, chose to disregard the outcome and substituted him with a defeated aspirant, Celestine Omehia.

On 26 January 2007, Amaechi sued. While his case worked its way up the hierarchy of the courts, the country went to vote. When the vote took place, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, declared Celestine Omehia of the PDP the winner of the governorship ballot in Rivers State. On 29 May 2007, he took his oath to assume office as the new governor of the State.

Nearly five months later, on 25 October 2007, the Supreme Court decided that the PDP acted unlawfully when they replaced Rotimi Amaechi with an aspirant whom he had defeated in the primaries. Even more consequentially, the court held that when citizens vote in elections, they do not vote for candidates; they vote for parties. Since Amaechi was the rightful candidate of the PDP in the election, the court continued, he was the inheritor of the mandate conferred on Celestine Omehia.

In the immediate term, the court installed as elected a person who was not even on the ballot (admittedly, for reasons not of his own making). But there was an even more far-reaching consequence. The Court collapsed the distinction between pre-election and post-election season. This distinction had served three functions previously.

First, it enabled candidates and the INEC to calibrate the deployment of their assets, budgets, and messaging through the variable contours of the electoral season.

Second, it was understood that pre-election disputes went to the regular courts of the country, and that only election tribunals could decide post-election disputes. This was a very fundamental distinction. A single judge at first instance could decide a pre-election dispute but an election petition tribunal had to be constituted by a minimum of three judges working to very finite timelines.

Third, until the Amaechi case, pre-election disputes were not supposed to determine the votes of the citizens or decide the outcome of the election. If there was a pre-election dispute, it affected the parties and determined the eligibility of the candidates to be on the ballot. By contrast, the post-election season consequences resonated in terms of the outcome of the election. Only duly constituted election petition tribunals could decide that.

The Amaechi case ended the monopoly of election petition tribunals on the capacity to determine the lawfulness of an election outcome.

In 2019, for instance, the Supreme Court decided well after the votes had been cast and counted to retrospectively “waste” the votes credited to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and hand victory in Zamfara State to candidates who had clearly been rejected by the people of the state. In 2023, the Court of Appeal did the same thing in Plateau State. It took the Supreme Court to save the state governor by the skin of his political teeth.

Since the Amaechi case in 2007, therefore, the courts have conflated the political season into one prolonged obstacle course ending not in the ballot box but in courtroom theatre. In turn, this has forced politicians to re-calibrate their attitudes to political staffing, financing, and campaigning.

Every serious politician knows now that it is not enough to have their favorite people in both the INEC and the security services; they must also have their intimates in the highest possible echelons of the judiciary.

Judicial appointments have become so serious that, increasingly, they are now abandoned to politicians and their senior judicial clients alone. The politicians know that they need to be represented in the room when the haggling for the dispositive judicial votes are done.

This also means that the political campaign season is effectively perennial. Every politician in office knows they have to make good with the judiciary. Senior politicians seek to out-do one another in sundry donations to judges from cars to houses; hospital bills; and even dollars for overseas school fees for their children.

Everyone knows that the final call on winners and losers will be made in bargains with and by judges. Niger State Governor, Mohammed Bago, holds the record with over 100 vehicles doled out to judicial officers in one sitting. Every State governor is an active competitor in this Olympiad of judicial charity. FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, takes the prize as Nigeria’s judicial Bob-the-Builder.

It must be more than a coincidence that as INEC flagged off its version of the campaign season at the end of last month, the judiciary in Nigeria was off on its annual vacation. They will be entitled to one more vacation at the end of the year.

In the end, every election cycle in Nigeria is now a never-ending campaign season of four quarters. There is a quarter dedicated to political charity for the judiciary. This can seem perennial. The party-political campaign season interrupts. That season belongs mostly to the parties, the politicians, and godfathers but many judges keep more than a watching brief.

The voting season is brief. It is the season for the security agencies, thugs, and lower-level staff of INEC to make hay. Thereafter, matters shift to the courts for the dispute resolution season, which belongs to the lawyers (mostly Senior Advocates of Nigeria, SANs) and judges. All four seasons are separate but inter-dependent.

Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, a lawyer, teaches at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and can be reached through chidi.odinkalu@tufts.edu.

By Isaac Asabor

The recent incident involving a media professional and a representative of the Federal Capital Territory administration has raised important questions about the safety, dignity and independence of broadcasters in Nigeria.

At the heart of the matter is not simply an exchange between an individual broadcaster and a public official.

Broadcasters have a responsibility to stand in solidarity with one another when the independence of the press comes under pressure, particularly when attempts to dictate who can question public officials threaten to become accepted practice.

The Independent Broadcasting Association of Nigeria (IBAN), a national body representing private television and radio broadcasters across Nigeria, exists to advance excellence, fairness and innovation in the media industry. Its role underscores the importance of protecting an independent broadcasting sector capable of serving the public without undue interference.

Independent broadcasters are central to Nigeria’s media pluralism. They provide diverse perspectives that reflect the country’s rich mix of cultures, languages and communities. They also create platforms through which grassroots voices can be heard and communities can engage with issues that directly affect their lives. That role makes editorial independence particularly important.

Unlike state-controlled media, independent broadcasters have a responsibility to maintain editorial freedom and local relevance. Their strength lies in their ability to provide space for different perspectives, including views that may sometimes challenge those in positions of authority.

It is against the foregoing background that the incident deserves broader consideration. One of the most troubling aspects of the matter is the apparent attempt to determine which journalist should be allowed to ask questions while an official was being represented. Public officials are accountable to the public, and journalists serve as one of the channels through which citizens demand that accountability.

A public official cannot reasonably expect to determine which journalist or broadcaster rather is qualified to ask questions simply because the questions may be uncomfortable.

Broadcasters may differ in style, experience and approach, but the right to ask legitimate questions should not depend on whether those questions are convenient to the person being interviewed.

Allowing public officials to select only journalists they consider friendly or acceptable would create a dangerous precedent. It could gradually turn press engagements into controlled public-relations exercises rather than opportunities for scrutiny.

That is why broadcasters should regard any attempt to undermine the independence of a colleague as a matter that concerns the wider profession.

Another concern arising from the incident is the apparent shift from addressing substantive questions to criticizing the journalist asking them.

Questions surrounding public land, government resources or the conduct of public officials are matters of legitimate public interest. They deserve clear answers, not personal attacks against the journalist who raises them.

A journalist’s personality, background or perceived disposition should not become a convenient distraction from the issue being investigated.

This does not mean journalists should be immune from criticism. They can, and should, be held accountable where they breach professional standards. But criticism should be based on facts and established journalistic principles, rather than being used as a weapon to intimidate journalists into silence.

When personal attacks become the preferred response to legitimate scrutiny, the larger casualty is public accountability.

Broadcasting is a profession that must defend its boundaries. This is particularly important because the incident comes against a background of recurring friction between government authorities and sections of the broadcast media.

Such disagreements are not unusual. Journalists and public officials will inevitably clash from time to time, particularly when reporters pursue difficult questions. What matters is how both sides respond to those disagreements.

For broadcasters, professionalism must remain paramount. Questions should be fair, relevant and supported by facts. But professionalism should not be confused with submission.

A journalist can be respectful without surrendering independence. A broadcaster can maintain decorum without abandoning difficult questions. And a media organization can cooperate with government institutions without becoming an extension of them.

This is where the importance of independent broadcasting becomes even more evident. Independent broadcasters serve as an essential pillar of Nigeria’s media pluralism because they provide platforms for voices that may otherwise struggle to gain visibility. Their local reach enables them to bring community concerns, public grievances and issues of accountability into national conversations.

If broadcasters are intimidated into avoiding difficult questions, the damage goes beyond individual journalists or individual media organizations. It weakens the diversity of voices available to Nigerians and ultimately limits citizens’ access to information.

Therefore, solidarity among broadcasters should not be interpreted as a demand that journalists be protected from legitimate scrutiny.

Rather, solidarity should mean defending the principle that journalists must be allowed to perform legitimate professional duties without intimidation, humiliation or arbitrary restrictions.

If one journalist is targeted today because of an uncomfortable question, another could face the same treatment tomorrow. Silence in the first instance can therefore become an invitation for the practice to continue.

The Nigerian media has a duty to protect its professional space. That duty is particularly important at a time when public confidence in institutions, accountability and democratic governance remains fragile.

Broadcasters should therefore resist attempts to personalize legitimate journalistic scrutiny. They should insist that disagreements with journalists be addressed through facts, evidence and established professional channels.

The press does not exist to please public officials. Its responsibility is to inform citizens, scrutinize those who exercise public authority and bring issues of public interest into the open.

Independent broadcasting is indispensable to that responsibility. By reflecting the diversity of Nigerian society and providing platforms for grassroots and community voices, independent broadcasters help ensure that public discourse is not controlled by a single authority or viewpoint.

That responsibility becomes meaningless if journalists are allowed to ask questions only when those in power approve of the questions, or approve of the journalists asking them.

The strength of Nigerian broadcasting lies not merely in the number of television and radio stations operating across the country, but in the freedom of those platforms to interrogate power, amplify citizens’ concerns and contribute to an informed society.

Broadcasters should therefore call for solidarity, not because journalists are above criticism, but because the independence of the press is too important to be left vulnerable to intimidation, personal attacks or attempts to dictate who gets to ask the questions.

Solidarity, in this context, is not about protecting individuals from accountability. It is about protecting the professional principle that makes accountability possible in the first place.