Hi everyone! In the previous blog, we discussed Nigeria's economy and highlighted specific policy gaps the country faces. These policy gaps ultimately result in significant challenges: limited access to education and healthcare, poor infrastructure, poverty rates, and high crime rates. In this blog, we will dive deeper into these problems and the government policies that have been created to address these problems, yet they have some weaknesses.
I am first going to talk about the Middle Belt and the problems it faces. In the previous blog, I discussed how the Middle Belt used to be the least developed region in Nigeria, but due to government efforts, the region has gained significant attention from the local population due to its fertile lands and economic activity in tin mining. Although this area has rapidly developed some of the biggest problems it faces are: limited access to education and healthcare, poor infrastructure, and violence.
Violence is common in the Middle Belt, especially between farmers and nomadic herders. Many of the fights are often instigated by either party. They typically involve disagreements about land, grazing lands, destruction of crops, and water sources. These fights ultimately resulted in 15,000 deaths. "Nigeria has experienced the highest number of farmer-herder fatalities in West or Central Africa over the past decade."(africacenter.org).
The Nigerian government has noticed this issue and has instilled certain policies to help combat this issue: these policies include the National Livestock and Transformation Plan (NLTP) and the Operation Safe Haven (OPSH). NLTP was issued to address problems in livestock farming in Nigeria.
NLTP is endorsed by governors and can only be endorsed if the governor supports this plan. The NLTP replaced open grazing with ranching. This created designated grazing areas and ranches. This ultimately helped address the conflict between farmers and herders: it prevented the herders from invading farmers' land. Additionally, the NLTP provided many herders with tips, veterinarians, and animal nutrition which allowed the quality of livestock to increase. These actions have decreased the amount of fights between farmers and herders dramatically. However, although the NLTP has helped reduce the amount of conflict it still has its flaws. Many local communities refuse to implement the NLTP which doesn't decrease the amount of land, and many areas with high crime rates implemented illegal grazing routes, which caused the tensions to rise more than before.
Although the NLTP addressed the problems related to herding and land disputes, however, it does not address some other root causes for the violence: religious tensions and crime rates. The OPSH was created to address these problems. The OPSH had a mix of military action community engagement, and humanitarian efforts. They have deployed multiple soldiers in violence hotspots, this is not only limited to the middle belt but it includes all areas around Nigeria. They have also had many youth activists and traditional rulers organize events to promote peace and unity. These organizations spread awareness and discuss the negative impacts of ethnic profiling and violence. However while the OPSH has made tremendous strides to help violence in Nigeria, there are still some flaws. Many people claim that OPSH has some biases against certain ethnic groups and many individuals lack trust in the military and also feel as if they are biased against certain ethnic groups.
These problems are not only limited to the middle belt. They are also active in other places in Nigeria. However, while violence is a huge concern in Nigeria lack of education and healthcare and poor infrastructure are also major problems the country faces. This area is a big concern in Nigeria that the government has noticed. In order to address these problems they have created the Midwives Service Scheme (MSS), Safe Motherhood Project, and many more. These programs specifically focus on helping with infant mortality rates and ensuring women have proper access to healthcare supplies. While this problem is severe and results in many deaths the government is noticing this and creating specific programs to help mitigate this issue. Their efforts have not gone unnoticed these programs have expanded healthcare access to over 2.4 million Nigerian women and have been recognized by the World Bank. These new developments have also led Nigeria to collaborate with different countries to improve their infrastructure in Nigeria, specifically hospitals to help better the country.
However, lack of access to healthcare has not been the only thing that has alerted the government's attention. The government has also noticed the lack of education opportunities and has created several projects to help address it. The government has created the Nigeria Learning Passport (NLP) and the Student Learning Scheme.
The NLP is a digital platform that provides continuous education to young children. This platform allows children to learn new information from anywhere and aligns with multiple curriculums globally. As of 2025, this curriculum has reached around 12 million children in Nigeria. While this program has allowed multiple children to gain access to education, there are still some flaws. In rural areas, many children do not have access to the internet and throughout Nigeria, access to electricity is limited, which inhibits the knowledge children can obtain. Secondly, there are no teachers to help ease the students to learn this new information, and for many low-income families, most of the adults in the family do not have prior education opportunities and are uneducated.
The Student Learning scheme differs from the NLP and helps mitigate the problems the NLP does not. The Student Learning Scheme is a student loaning scheme that provides low-income households with financial assistance. This program has helped millions of students gain access to higher education and it helps many marginalized groups have equal access to education opportunities.
Overall, there are many policy gaps within Nigeria. However, the government is noticing these problems and creating different programs and regulations to help minimize these problems. While these solutions may not be perfect and completely eliminate the problems, they have drastically decreased the problems Nigeria faces. At this rate, I have no doubt that Nigeria will be a safer and more economically safer place than before.
https://africacenter.org/publication/growing-complexity-farmer-herder-conflict-west-central-africa/
https://africarenewal.un.org/en?utm_source=chatgpt.com
https://africarenewal.un.org/en/magazine/advocating-justice-and-rights-people-african-descent
Very well done Parnika. Keep up the nice work.
ReplyDelete