By Daniel Nduka Okonkwo

Walk through any Nigerian city before sunrise and you will meet the youth of this country already awake, already moving, already working, already fighting to make a living before much of the nation has opened its eyes.

There is the delivery rider weaving through traffic, sometimes before breakfast. There is a graduate selling goods by the roadside with a university certificate at home. A young woman is running a provisions shop while spending a significant part of her income keeping a generator running. There is a software developer working through the night for clients abroad because the domestic market cannot provide sufficient income.

There is the artisan, the farmer, the POS operator, the online trader, the mechanic, the barber, the tailor, the content creator, and the young entrepreneur employing a handful of workers while struggling to keep the business alive. These are not isolated stories. They represent a much larger reality confronting Nigeria’s young population.

Nigeria is one of the world’s youngest countries, with more than 60 percent of its population under 30. The country’s youthful population is a major potential engine of social and economic transformation, while also identifying persistent structural barriers preventing many young Nigerians from realising that potential. The question is therefore no longer whether Nigerian youths are willing to work.

The harder question is why a country with such a large, energetic, and increasingly entrepreneurial young population has struggled to convert that enormous human effort into productive, secure, and dignified economic opportunity. This is the question Nigeria must confront. It is also a question government policy must answer.

Consider the university graduate who leaves home early, spends much of the day delivering packages across a crowded city, and returns exhausted, only to spend part of the night learning another skill or pursuing freelance work. The graduate may technically be employed. But employment alone does not tell the whole story.

If the work is informal, income is unstable, access to affordable credit is limited, social protection is weak, and there is no realistic pathway for the worker to build a sustainable enterprise, the work employed can conceal a much larger economic problem.

Nigeria’s official labour statistics demonstrate why the issue requires careful examination. The National Bureau of Statistics reported an unemployment rate of 4.3 percent in the second quarter of 2024, with unemployment among people aged 15 to 24 at 6.5 percent. At the same time, informal employment stood at 93 percent, time-related underemployment at 9.2 percent, and the proportion of young people not in education, employment, or training, the NEET rate, at 12.5 percent.

These figures should not be interpreted to mean that only a small proportion of young Nigerians face economic hardship. Neither should the official unemployment figure simply be dismissed as meaningless. Nigeria’s labour statistics follow internationally recognised concepts for measuring employment and unemployment.

The important point is that unemployment is only one measure of labour-market wellbeing. A person can be counted as employed while working in an informal occupation, earning an unstable income, or operating a small enterprise with little prospect of expansion. That distinction is critical. Nigeria’s problem is therefore larger than unemployment alone. It is also a problem of job quality, informality, underemployment, productivity, income security, and opportunity. Africans & Diaspora

The NBS figures provide a striking picture. In Q2 2024, unemployment was 4.3 percent. But informal employment was 93 percent. The combined unemployment and time-related underemployment measure, LU2, was 13 percent. What does that mean? It means Nigeria’s labour-market challenge cannot be understood simply by asking how many people have no work. kind of work people are doing, how much they earn, how secure that work is, and whether it gives them a realistic opportunity to improve their economic position.

A young Nigerian who spends ten or twelve hours selling goods, riding a motorcycle, operating a POS terminal, farming, freelancing, or running a small business is not necessarily unemployed. But neither should policymakers assume that the person has achieved economic security simply because the person is counted as employed. This is the statistical paradox at the heart of Nigeria’s youth economy. People are working. Yet too many remain economically vulnerable.

In 2023, figures circulated by the World of Statistics placed Nigeria second among the countries compared for average annual hours worked, at about 2,124 hours per worker, behind Mexico’s 2,128 hours. The figures were subsequently reported by Nigerian media.

That comparison is several years old and should not be presented as a current 2026 ranking. But it remains useful in illustrating a deeper point. Long working hours do not automatically produce prosperity. The Nigerian worker often works hard because failure to work has immediate consequences. A trader cannot simply close the shop. A mechanic cannot afford to lose customers. A delivery rider cannot afford to stop riding.

A farmer cannot postpone the planting season because input prices are rising. A young woman selling clothes online cannot simply abandon her business because electricity, transport, and logistics costs have increased. A freelance designer may work late into the night because the next client is never guaranteed. This is the deeper story behind Nigeria’s famous hustle culture.

The extraordinary resilience of Nigerian youths is an economic asset. But it should also be a warning. A society should not have to depend indefinitely on the ability of its youngest citizens to survive increasingly difficult conditions.

Across Nigeria, young people are effectively creating economic opportunities where formal systems have failed to create enough of them. They establish online clothing businesses. They build websites and applications. They design graphics. They operate POS terminals. They provide logistics and delivery services. They repair phones and computers.

They run restaurants and food businesses. They work in agriculture. They manufacture products on a small scale. They sell through WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, and other digital platforms. They combine formal employment with side businesses.

They learn vocational skills outside conventional educational institutions. They move from one occupation to another in search of opportunity. This entrepreneurial culture is not merely a social phenomenon. It is an economic resource.

The Mastercard Foundation’s 2026 Africa Youth Employment Outlook estimates that about 57 percent of Africa’s youth were working in 2025 and that 90 percent of employed young Africans were in informal work. The report also warns that high employment can coexist with working poverty, low productivity, and weak job security. These are continental figures, not Nigeria-specific estimates, but they provide useful context for understanding the wider labour-market environment in which Nigeria’s young population operates. The opportunity is enormous. But so is the policy challenge.

The problem is not necessarily that Nigerian youths lack ambition. It is the environment in which they operate that often prevents ambition from becoming scale. A young software developer may have the skills to serve international clients but struggle with electricity and internet costs. A fashion entrepreneur may have customers but lack affordable working capital. A young farmer may have land but lack irrigation, storage, transportation, and reliable access to markets.

A mechanic may have customers but lack modern equipment. A food entrepreneur may have demand but find that electricity, fuel, transportation, and raw material costs consume much of the business margin. A graduate may possess qualifications and professional skills but discover that the formal economy cannot absorb enough people with similar credentials.

This is the difference between working hard and working productively. Nigeria has millions of young people supplying labour. What it has not yet adequately supplied is the infrastructure, affordable finance, energy, education, security, and market systems required to multiply the value of that labour.

It would be inaccurate to suggest that the government has done nothing. There are substantial public programmes aimed at youth employment, entrepreneurship, skills development, and enterprise financing. In July 2026, the Federal Government launched Power Force, an initiative designed to train 5,000 young Nigerians in smart-meter deployment and create pathways into employment and entrepreneurship within the electricity sector.

The government said participants would receive technical training and certification before being connected to opportunities with distribution companies, meter providers, and other industry participants.

The Bank of Industry reported that in 2025 it disbursed ₦636 billion to more than 7,000 businesses across several sectors. It said ₦12 billion went to youth-owned enterprises, while its interventions supported more than 7,000 new MSMEs and 570 startups. BOI also reported that its 2025 interventions created or retained an estimated 1.6 million jobs.

These figures are claims and estimates reported by the institution and should be treated as such. They are important. They should also be independently tested, because the existence of a programme is not the same thing as proof that the underlying structural problem has been solved.

More importantly, distributing funds is an output, not necessarily an outcome. A loan being disbursed does not, by itself, establish that a business has become sustainable, that employment has been permanently created, or that the structural conditions confronting Nigerian enterprises have improved.

Businesses continue to contend with inflation, high energy and transportation costs, inadequate infrastructure, limited access to markets, and other operating pressures. The existence of a financing programme, therefore, cannot, on its own, be treated as proof that these deeper structural challenges have been solved.

There is also a need to examine how such intervention figures are measured. Institutions naturally tend to highlight indicators such as the volume of funds disbursed, number of beneficiaries, and estimated jobs created, while the longer-term picture may require additional scrutiny, including business survival rates, loan repayment and default rates, the number of enterprises that subsequently scale or fail, and whether the interventions produce sustained improvements in household incomes and local economic activity.

That is why the BOI figures deserve independent testing rather than either automatic dismissal or unquestioning acceptance. Independent audits, transparent beneficiary-level data where appropriate, and longitudinal socioeconomic studies could help determine how many of the businesses supported

remain operational, how many have expanded, how many jobs have actually been sustained, and whether the financing is translating into measurable improvements in livelihoods. The numbers may demonstrate the scale of intervention, but only credible outcome-based evidence can establish its longer-term economic impact.

Nigeria has seen loans. It has seen grants. It has seen training programmes. It has seen entrepreneurship schemes. It has seen digital skills initiatives. It has seen public announcements involving billions of naira. The investigative question must therefore move beyond how much money was announced. It must ask how many young Nigerians actually received it.

How many received the full amount? How many businesses survived? How many jobs remained in existence after one year? How many beneficiaries remained economically active after three years? How many businesses moved from survival-level operations into sustainable enterprises? How were beneficiaries selected? Were beneficiary lists published? Were programmes independently audited? What percentage of the country’s youth population was actually reached? These are not hostile questions. They are basic questions of public accountability.

A programme can genuinely help thousands of people and still be too small to transform the national youth labour market. Both things can be true. That is why the government should publish measurable outcomes rather than relying principally on announcements of inputs, training numbers, or disbursement figures.

There is also a deeper policy issue. Nigeria cannot solve a structural youth-employment problem simply by distributing money. A grant may help a young entrepreneur start a business. But what happens when electricity costs rise? What happens when transport costs increase? What happens when raw materials become more expensive? What happens when inflation reduces purchasing power? What happens when insecurity disrupts supply chains? What happens when the entrepreneur needs another round of affordable financing? What happens when the local market itself becomes too weak to sustain expansion? The entrepreneur can receive capital and still fail because the operating environment destroys the economics of the business. This is why youth policy must move beyond empowerment to productivity.

For millions of Nigerian entrepreneurs, electricity is not simply an infrastructure issue. It is an employment issue. A barber needs electricity. A tailor needs electricity. A restaurant needs electricity. A graphic designer needs electricity. A software developer needs electricity.

A small manufacturer needs electricity. A cold-room operator needs electricity. A phone-repair technician needs electricity. When public electricity is unreliable, entrepreneurs often have to purchase generators, fuel, and maintenance services simply to remain operational. That creates a hidden tax on enterprise. Money that could have been used to employ another worker, buy equipment, expand production, or acquire new skills is instead spent merely keeping the business alive.

Nigeria, therefore, loses productivity twice. First, through inadequate infrastructure. Second, through the additional cost entrepreneurs incur to compensate for it. This is why electricity policy should also be understood as an employment policy.

The same applies to inflation. When the cost of food, transportation, rent, fuel, and business inputs rises faster than income, young entrepreneurs experience a silent contraction. The business may remain open. Customers may still arrive. Sales may continue.

But real purchasing power and profit margins can deteriorate. The entrepreneur then works longer hours simply to maintain the same standard of living. That is how a young person’s economic life can become an endless cycle of work without accumulation. The objective of economic policy should not merely be to keep young Nigerians busy.

It should be to ensure that their work generates enough value to allow them to save, invest, acquire assets, employ others, and build stable futures.

There is another structural problem. Nigeria produces graduates, but the economy does not always generate enough high-quality opportunities to absorb them. At the same time, employers frequently report skills gaps. Young people then face a familiar contradiction. Employers want experience. Young people need employment to acquire experience. Unable to enter the formal labour market, many create side businesses.

The side business becomes the main occupation. The person is then economically active, but potentially remains financially insecure. This is why Nigeria’s youth-employment debate must extend beyond unemployment figures. It must include informality, underemployment, productivity, income, and job quality.

Afrobarometer’s survey of Nigerians aged 18 to 35 provides important evidence about how young people themselves view their economic circumstances. The cost of living was identified as the most important problem young Nigerians wanted the government to address, followed by unemployment, crime and security, poverty, management of the economy, and electricity.

On inflation control and job creation, only 2 percent and 6 percent, respectively, said the government was doing fairly well or very well. The survey also reported that 91 percent said the country was moving in the wrong direction. Sixty percent said they had considered emigrating, with jobs and economic hardship among the reasons cited.

The survey further found that nearly one quarter of young respondents were unemployed and looking for work.

These findings are not a verdict on one political party or administration. They are survey findings reflecting the views of the respondents at the time the research was conducted. They provide evidence of widespread economic concern among a generation confronting difficult conditions. That should concern every policymaker.

Nigeria’s youth migration, popularly described as japa, is frequently discussed as an individual decision. It is also an economic issue. When Nigeria educates and trains a young person, that person acquires skills, knowledge, and experience.

When that person subsequently leaves because domestic economic opportunities are inadequate, Nigeria does not lose everything, but it can lose part of the potential return on its investment in human capital. The receiving country gains the worker’s skills. Nigeria may lose labour, entrepreneurship, and future tax contributions.

Migration itself is not inherently negative. Nigerians abroad contribute significantly through remittances, investment, professional networks, and knowledge. The policy question is different. What conditions are causing so many young Nigerians to consider leaving in the first place? Afrobarometer’s finding that six in ten young Nigerians had considered emigration makes that question impossible to ignore.

There is something admirable about Nigerian youth resilience. But resilience should never become an excuse for structural failure. A government should not point to a young person selling products online and simply say, look, Nigerians are entrepreneurial.

The next question must be, why does that entrepreneur have to fight electricity costs, inflation, taxation, insecurity, expensive credit, poor infrastructure, and weak purchasing power simultaneously?

When a graduate becomes a delivery rider, society should respect the dignity of that work. But policymakers should also ask why a university graduate cannot more easily convert education and skills into productive, sustainable employment.

The answer is not to discourage hustling. It is to create an economy where hustling can become an enterprise.

The solution does not lie in one giant youth programme. It requires a different approach to youth economic policy. The government should measure outcomes rather than announcements. Major youth programmes should publish the number of beneficiaries, geographic distribution, amounts disbursed, business survival rates, jobs created, repayment rates where applicable, and independently verified results.

Financing should be easier to access and linked to genuine economic opportunities. Technical and vocational education should be connected directly to employers and industries.

The government should invest in reliable electricity, broadband, transport, and industrial infrastructure. Young entrepreneurs should be protected from overlapping taxes, unofficial charges, and regulatory uncertainty. Government procurement can create opportunities for credible youth-owned businesses. Agricultural policy should address the entire value chain, from production to storage, processing, transportation, and markets.

Skills programmes should measure whether participants actually obtain income-generating opportunities after training. And formalisation should become easier and less punitive for small businesses.

The objective should be simple: to move young Nigerians from survival-level economic activity to a productive, scalable enterprise.

The Mastercard Foundation’s 2026 Africa Youth Employment Outlook offers an important lesson for Nigeria. Africa’s challenge is not simply unemployment. It is also the prevalence of informal, low-productivity, and insecure work.

The report estimates that 57 percent of Africa’s youth were working in 2025, while 90 percent of employed young Africans were in informal jobs. It also estimates that 104 million young workers across the continent lived in households classified as extremely poor under the report’s international poverty measure.

The implication for Nigeria is profound. The country does not merely need to get young people working. They are already working. Nigeria needs to make its work more productive. It needs to help a trader become a formal business. A rider becomes a logistics entrepreneur. A tailor becomes a manufacturer. A farmer becomes an agro-processor.

A programmer becomes an exporter of digital services. A creative artist becomes a sustainable business. A graduate becomes a professional rather than a perpetual hustler. That is what it means to utilise Nigeria’s youth.

As Nigeria approaches another electoral cycle, young Nigerians have legitimate questions for anyone seeking public office. What precisely will you do to reduce the cost of electricity for small businesses, and how will progress be measured? How many sustained jobs will your policies create, as distinct from loans, training certificates, and temporary programmes? Will you publish beneficiary lists and independently verifiable outcomes for youth-empowerment programmes? What is your strategy for protecting the purchasing power of young workers and entrepreneurs?

How will you reduce multiple taxation and unlawful or unofficial charges imposed on small businesses? How will young entrepreneurs obtain affordable credit without collateral requirements that exclude most people at the beginning of their economic lives? What will you do to connect education and vocational training to actual labour-market demand? How will your policies make it easier for young businesses to survive beyond the first year? And perhaps the most fundamental question, how will you turn Nigeria’s enormous youth population from a demographic challenge into a productive economic advantage?

These are not partisan questions. There are questions about governance, economic policy, and the future of the country.

There is a fundamental difference between surviving and prospering. Nigerian youths have demonstrated that they can survive extraordinary economic pressure. They have demonstrated creativity. They have demonstrated adaptability. They have demonstrated technological awareness. They have demonstrated entrepreneurial courage. They have demonstrated an extraordinary willingness to work.

The evidence from Nigeria’s labour statistics, international youth-employment research, and public-opinion surveys points to a reality much more complicated than the simple label of unemployed youth. Nigeria has a generation that is already contributing. The real question is whether the country can build an economy capable of rewarding that contribution.

Nigeria’s young people do not need to be taught how to hustle. They need an economic environment in which hard work can produce accumulation rather than merely survival. They need electricity that allows businesses to operate.

They need affordable capital that allows businesses to grow. They need education that connects to real economic opportunities. They need security that protects their lives and investments. They need infrastructure that reduces operating costs. They need predictable taxation and regulation. They need transparent public programmes whose benefits can be independently verified.

And above all, they need the government to recognise that youth development is not simply a charity project. It is an economic policy.

The young Nigerian selling clothes from a small room, the graduate riding through traffic to deliver parcels, the woman running a POS business, the software developer working for an international client, the mechanic in a roadside workshop, the farmer struggling to reach the market, and the young entrepreneur trying to keep ten employees on payroll are not peripheral to Nigeria’s economy. They are part of the country’s emerging workforce and productive capacity.

The question confronting Nigeria is therefore not whether its youths are hardworking. The evidence presented here shows that millions of Nigerian youths are economically active and working across formal and informal sectors. The question is whether Nigeria will build an economic system capable of turning that extraordinary effort into greater productivity, higher incomes, sustainable businesses, and dignified work.

Because a nation cannot build its future indefinitely by asking its youngest generation to work harder against obstacles that public policy can reduce. Nigeria’s youths have already shown what they can do with very little. They have built businesses without reliable electricity. They have created careers without guaranteed employment.

They have acquired skills without adequate institutional support. They have survived inflation, insecurity, and weak infrastructure. They have kept moving when stopping was not an option.

Now the question is no longer what Nigerian youths can do for Nigeria.

The question is what Nigeria is prepared to do to ensure that its work finally produces the future it deserves.

Daniel Nduka Okonkwo is an investigative journalist, human rights advocate, and publisher, and the founder of Profiles International Human Rights Advocate, PIHRA. His work focuses on governance, accountability, and the protection of fundamental rights across Nigeria and Africa. His reporting has appeared in Vanguard, Daily Trust, Sahara Reporters, African Defence Forum, Opinion Nigeria, Daily Intel, African Angle, and others.

By Kenechukwu Aguolu

With the Dangote Refinery Initial Public Offering (IPO) opening on Monday, September 14, the excitement among Nigerian investors is understandable. The opportunity to own a stake in one of Africa’s largest industrial assets is significant.

However, for small investors with a short-term investment horizon, the excitement should be accompanied by caution. This is not a warning against participating in the IPO, but a reminder that a great company does not automatically make every entry price attractive.

At ₦525 per share, investors are being asked to value Dangote Refinery at a very substantial level.

For a long-term investor, the refinery’s scale, strategic importance, expansion plans and potential to become a major energy hub for Africa may justify such optimism. For the small, short-term investor, however, the immediate question is different: how much room is there for the share price to rise after listing before profit-taking and valuation concerns emerge?

Dangote Refinery’s recent financial performance has been exceptional. The company reportedly recorded about $1.82b in profit after tax in the first half of 2026, following a loss in the previous year. While this turnaround is impressive, investors should be careful about assuming that such exceptional earnings will automatically continue at the same level.

Refining profitability is influenced by global oil prices, crude supply, product prices and refining margins. The current geopolitical tensions involving Iran and the wider Middle East have disrupted energy markets and contributed to tight supplies and elevated refining margins. As these disruptions eventually ease, global refining conditions could normalise. The refinery may remain highly profitable, but its earnings could be lower than the extraordinary levels currently being reported.

Another consideration is competition. Dangote Refinery currently enjoys an enormous competitive advantage because of its scale and limited refining capacity in Nigeria. However, that advantage should not be mistaken for a permanent monopoly. High profits and a large market opportunity are likely to attract competitors. Existing refineries can increase production, while new refining and petrochemical projects may emerge across Nigeria and Africa. As competition increases, market share and refining margins could come under pressure.

For the small short-term investor, the greatest risk may therefore be buying into the initial excitement and then experiencing a price correction. This is a familiar pattern in highly anticipated offerings and investments. The initial enthusiasm can push prices beyond levels justified by near-term fundamentals, after which early investors take profits and the market reassesses the valuation. Similar patterns have been observed in other high-profile investments, including the market reaction surrounding SpaceX-related investment opportunities, where intense enthusiasm has at times been followed by valuation adjustments.

Dangote Refinery may ultimately become an outstanding long-term investment. Its size, strategic importance and expansion potential are difficult to ignore. But tomorrow’s IPO should not be viewed as a situation where investors must rush in simply because they fear missing out.

For the small, short-term investor, patience can be an investment strategy. The objective should not simply be to own Dangote Refinery, but to own it at a price that provides sufficient room for profit. Investors should consider sustainable earnings, future competition, normalised refining margins and the possibility of post-listing profit-taking.

The September 14 IPO is therefore best approached with cautious optimism rather than fear or excessive excitement. Participating may prove rewarding, but investors should also be prepared for the possibility that the initial hype could push the share price ahead of fundamentals before a correction brings valuation back into focus.

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.

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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)