Author: Sodiq Mojibola

The overall best graduating student of Ladoke Akintola University of Technology (LAUTECH), Olugbenga Oladepo, says his experience exploring foreign scholarship opportunities revealed that many of them are tied to institutional loans that attract interest, unlike Nigeria’s student loan scheme. Mr Oladepo, who graduated with a Cumulative Grade Point Average (CGPA) of 4.89 in Electronics and Electrical Engineering, recently drew widespread attention on X (formerly Twitter) after sharing how support from the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND) shaped his academic journey. His post sparked mixed reactions, with some questioning and others applauding the scheme’s impact. Speaking during a conversation hosted by…

The Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of the United Bank for Africa (UBA) Foundation, Bola Atta has called for the urgent revival of history education, warning that Nigerian girls could grow up without a sense of identity if the trend continues. Ms Atta spoke at Queen’s College on Wednesday during ‘HerStory of Nigeria School Tour’, a project by Asiri Magazine aimed at documenting and archiving the history of Nigerian women. The event also marked the launch of the HerStory of Nigeria Illustration Magazine. Delivering the keynote address, Ms Atta said history had steadily faded from school curricula and public…

Sixteen years after it was first conceived, the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited (NNPC), Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company Limited (SNEPCo), and the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB) have formally handed over a state-of-the-art Geosciences Centre of Excellence to the University of Lagos (UNILAG), marking the completion of a strategic investment in Nigeria’s research capacity. The facility, commissioned on Friday, is the product of a collaboration involving Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company Limited (SNEPCo), the Nigerian Content Development and Monitoring Board (NCDMB), and other co-venture partners. It is expected to reduce Nigeria’s reliance on foreign laboratories…

Road construction accounts for about 60 per cent of telecommunication network outages in Nigeria, industry experts have said, warning that repeated excavation of roads to lay fibre cables is driving service disruptions and rising deployment costs. Stakeholders made the call on Thursday in Lagos at the 8th Policy Implementation Assisted Forum (PIAFO) National Dig-Once Policy Forum, where they urged federal and state governments to adopt a coordinated framework for fibre deployment alongside road construction. The forum, themed “Accelerating Nigeria’s Digital Backbone: Dig-Once Policy, Project BRIDGE and Strategies for Effective Fibre Deployment,” focused on aligning infrastructure planning to improve broadband access…

As the 2026 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) begins on Thursday, 16 April, the Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB) has introduced key adjustments and issued guidelines for candidates. The examination, which will run until 25 April, comes amid recent concerns over early arrival times and the overall conduct of the exercise, prompting the Board to review its schedule. No fewer than 2.24 million candidates are expected to sit the examination across 966 approved CBT centres nationwide. Although 23 centres have been delisted over poor performance during the mock UTME. In an update posted on its X handle on Monday,…

When Obinna Chima’s wife began to shake and slow down years ago, neither of them knew what to call it. Doctors treated her for other conditions. No one mentioned Parkinson’s disease. That changed in January 2020, when she finally received a proper diagnosis. “Before then, she had all these symptoms, but she wasn’t properly diagnosed,” Mr Chima said. “She would go to hospital, they would do one thing, give her medication she needed, sometimes based on antidepressants.” According to Parkinson’s Africa, her experience reflects that of thousands of Nigerians living with the disease without knowing it. On 11 April, the organisation marked…

Lagos’ growing housing crisis reflects deeper structural failures in governance, service delivery and urban policy, according to a new report by the African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC). Presented on Thursday in Lagos, the report which is based on 18 months of research across nine city systems found that rapid urbanisation, weak service delivery and elite capture of urban resources are pushing the majority of residents, many of whom live and work in informal systems, further to the margins. “We are sitting on a time bomb,” said Bimbo Osobe, President of the Nigeria Slum and Informal Settlement Federation, describing the scale…

Nigeria’s real estate sector has overtaken crude oil and natural gas in contributing to the economy for the first time since independence, yet millions of Nigerians remain unable to afford housing, the Founding Director of Centre for Housing and Sustainable Development (CHSD), University of Lagos (UNILAG), Timothy Nubi, a professor, has said. This contradiction shaped discussions at the Urban Action Forum, organised by the CHSD in collaboration with the African Cities Research Consortium (ACRC), held on Wednesday at the Arthur Mbanefo Digital Research Centre, UNILAG. Themed “A Roadmap for a Sustainable Urban Regeneration in Africa,” the event brought together academics,…

Artificial intelligence (AI) and a wave of new medical innovations are beginning to transform the global fight against tuberculosis, offering new possibilities for faster diagnosis, wider access to testing, and improved treatment outcomes. As countries commemorate this year’s World Tuberculosis Day on 24 March, themed “Yes! We can end TB!,” the renewed push comes amid continued concern over the disease’s global burden. According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), tuberculosis killed 1.23 million people and infected 10.7 million in 2024. Since 2000, global efforts have saved more than 83 million lives. Yet behind these figures lie disrupted families, lost jobs…

A survey presented at a training workshop organised by the Safer-Media Initiative (SMI) in Lagos on Wednesday, 18 March, shows that while 95 per cent of journalists in Nigeria use artificial intelligence (AI) tools at least once a week, only 10 per cent have received structured training from their newsrooms. Organisers warned that the gap exposes journalists to risks around accuracy, ethics and job security, calling for urgent newsroom support. Themed “AI Tools for Journalists: Effective, Responsible, and Safe Use,” the training  and the survey form part of SMI’s activities under the Artificial Intelligence and Media (AIM) Project, supported by…