Bisola (not real name), a young mother of three, has lived in Akufo, a town in Oyo State, all her life. She nearly died when she gave birth to her last born on a Sunday two years ago as she had to be taken to Adeoyo State Hospital, about 30 kilometres away. The situation was …
Read more “Built but Forsaken: How Akufo Health Centre has Become a Refuge for Goats”
Well over a million people live in the Toluwalase community of Oyo State, according to the residents. But the 2006 census, which forms the baseline for population estimates in Nigeria, did not capture this sprawling community. The people were however less worried about this markdown until it started manifesting bigger problems. The ICIR’s Kunle Adebajo, who …
Read more “Toluwalase Community: One Dark Spot on Nigeria’s Map”
A thesis―what many Nigerians refer to as a ‘project’—is defined as “a dissertation on a particular subject in which one has done original research, as one presented by a candidate for a diploma or degree”. “Original research”, or sometimes “personal research”, is a phrase that comes up regardless of what dictionary is consulted. Yet, it is …
Nigeria has always been famous for her huge population – the seventh largest in the world – and for her huge number of out-of-school children ― the largest in the world. Therefore, former president Goodluck Jonathan established “Almajiri integrated model schools” in the North to reduce the number of children who are out of schools, but …
Landmass may be contributing to the increasing ungoverned areas breeding terrorism and banditry across Nigeria’s northern states. The steady rise of violent extremism and its resulting conflicts has rendered Nigeria unsafe. In the past decade, the terrorist group Boko Haram, and its splinter organisations, ANSARU and the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), have caused …
Read more “Is Landmass Powering Violence in Northern Nigeria? Here’s What the Data Says”
Desperate, IDPs in Northeast Nigeria are plunging into the forests for their daily bread, despite the danger posed by lurking terrorists and the risks posed to the environment. Opposite Dalori II displacement camp, located at the outskirts of Maiduguri, Northeast Nigeria, is a mound of hay, nearly six feet tall and twice as wide. It had …
Read more “Fear of Boko Haram Not Enough to Protect Borno’s Forests From IDPs”
By Kunle Adebajo and Murtala AbdullahiPhotography by Kunle Adebajo and Murtala AbdullahiVisualizations by Yuxi Wang and Jillian Dudziak A bare-chested old man lies in the emergency room of a government hospital in northeast Nigeria. An intravenous line sticks out from his right arm and an arrow from his left shoulder. A second arrow, with the tip now detached from its shaft, rests on a …
Read more “An Encroaching Desert Intensifies Nigeria’s Farmer-Herder Crisis”
‘Civil wars ignite and escalate in ways that are predictable; they follow a script,’ writes author Barbara F. Walter. How close are developments in Nigeria to this time-tested script? For decades, social scientists have researched factors which, combined, best predict that a country will experience civil war. Nigeria ticks a lot of the boxes. Wars …
Read more “How Civil Wars Start and Lessons for Today’s Nigeria”