Tuesday, 3rd March, 2026
Your power bill, your police, your passport: all failing the same way
Nigeria charged you for a system today. Several of them, actually.
It charged Edo residents for electricity they didn't receive, billed them for meters they had to buy, then told them the distribution company isn't really the government's problem. A new police chief will be sworn in on Wednesday by the same president who fired the last one for disobedience. It admitted, through 36 governors endorsing an executive order, that oil money has been disappearing between collection and distribution for years.
And if you're Nigerian in America, it got worse. Your green card application is frozen. Your citizenship, if you naturalised, may now be under review. The single-entry visa was just the opening move.
That's today's through-line: systems that were built to serve you revealing, all at once, that you were never quite who they were built for. The light. The police. The oil money. The passport. Same pattern, different departments.
Ten stories. One through-line. Let's go.
1. THE LOYALIST
Tunji Disu is being sworn in as Inspector-General of Police today. He had 48 days left before mandatory retirement when Tinubu appointed him. Under the amended police law, he now gets a full four-year term.
Tinubu vouched for him personally: "I know your record. I saw the dedication you exhibited while you were in Lagos when I was governor." His predecessor resigned citing family reasons. Premium Times, citing sources, reported the presidency had been pushing him out for months.
The new IGP has promised to end "the era of impunity." Every new IGP says this. The question is which impunity he means, and whose orders he'll follow when the answer gets complicated.
2. YOUR OIL MONEY HAS A GAP
All 36 governors publicly backed Tinubu's Executive Order 9 this week, which forces oil and gas revenues to flow directly into the Federation Account. Their statement contained one sentence that explains a decade of broken infrastructure.
"Recent FAAC communiqués have consistently demonstrated a gap between gross revenue collections and final distributable sums."
That's the governors confirming, in writing, that money was being collected in Nigeria's name and not all of it was showing up for distribution. Every road that never got fixed. Every school that ran out of textbooks. The explanation has been sitting in the FAAC numbers for years.
3. PAYING FOR DARKNESS
Edo residents marched on Monday carrying banners that read: "We pay for light and they give us darkness." Their governor was passing by. He stopped and joined them.
Residents in parts of Edo haven't had power for between one and six months. Some bought their own transformers and poles because BEDC wouldn't fix the infrastructure, then signed undertakings donating that equipment to the company. Prepaid meters, which the federal government says should be free, are being sold for between ₦150,000 and ₦400,000.
The governor says he wants to break the monopoly. He's called a stakeholders meeting. Your generator is still the infrastructure.
4. YOUR US CITIZENSHIP IS REVIEWABLE
The Trump administration is targeting naturalised citizens for denaturalization at a rate of 100 to 200 cases per month. Historical average: 11 per year. Nigerian nationals are named explicitly in the enforcement framing.
This sits on top of the green card freeze, the single-entry three-month visa restriction, and the suspension of immigration applications for Nigerians already living legally in the US and awaiting status changes.
Your naturalisation certificate felt like the safe destination. The administration is now reviewing whether it should have been granted at all.
5. THE TRIAL OF NIGERIA'S OIL MONEY
Prosecutors at Southwark Crown Court submitted more evidence this week in the bribery trial of former petroleum minister Diezani Alison-Madueke. Kolawole Aluko's company allegedly paid $2.5 million for her shopping at Harrods. One trip: $190,000 on furniture and art. His company was created the day before it received a multimillion-dollar licensing deal from her ministry.
EFCC operatives testified virtually from Abuja to confirm documents recovered in raids on her Nigerian residence. Nigeria's anti-corruption agency providing evidence to a British court to prosecute a Nigerian minister for what she did to Nigerian public money.
This is the same petroleum ministry whose revenue gaps the governors just endorsed an order to fix. These stories are not separate.
6. WHEN PROTECTION COSTS $28,000
Lenacapavir is arriving in Nigeria this month. It's a twice-yearly HIV prevention injection that showed near-total effectiveness in clinical trials. In America it costs $28,000 per person per year. Nigeria is receiving it through donor partnerships for around $40.
Nigeria has 1.9 million people living with HIV. Women aged 15 to 49 are more than twice as likely to be living with it as men. The drug works for people who struggle with daily pill adherence: sex workers, people hiding their status, people whose routines don't accommodate daily medication.
The drug exists. The healthcare delivery system that has to get it from a warehouse in Abuja to a primary health centre in Akwa Ibom is a different question.
7. THE JUDGE WHO SAID NO
A federal judge in Boston ruled last week that the Trump administration cannot deport immigrants to countries they've never lived in. The ruling is being appealed.
This matters for Nigeria directly. The US has been pressuring Nigeria to accept Venezuelan and other non-Nigerian deportees. Nigeria said no. That refusal is part of what triggered the visa restrictions now affecting every Nigerian trying to travel to America.
You're carrying a restricted visa as the cost of your government's position in a negotiation you weren't part of. If the appeal succeeds, the pressure on Nigeria returns in full.
8. THE ₦1.3 TRILLION PROMISE
Nigeria signed a $1.3 billion deal with the Africa Finance Corporation on Sunday to build an alumina refinery, launch a national minerals mapping programme, and create an investment vehicle for exploration. The refinery would process one million tonnes of bauxite annually. Projected GDP contribution: $1.2 billion per year.
This is what economic diversification looks like when it isn't just a speech. Processing bauxite domestically rather than exporting raw ore is the difference between $40 a tonne and $400 a tonne.
It also requires sustained gas supply, functional rail infrastructure, and a regulatory environment that doesn't change rules mid-project. Watch what happens between the signing ceremony and the groundbreaking.
9. YOUR FEBRUARY SALARY WAS LATE
The federal government confirmed this week that February salaries for treasury-funded workers were delayed due to a "technical hitch." Payments have now commenced.
"Technical hitch" is Nigerian government language for: something went wrong, we're not explaining what, please move on. The salary came, as it always eventually does. The pattern of opaque delays and no accountability for them is the actual story.
For diaspora readers managing remittances: if your family's February was tight because a federal salary didn't arrive on time, it wasn't your math that was wrong.
10. 1.1 MILLION PLATES
In the first 10 days of Ramadan, Kano State's feeding programme served over 1.1 million residents across eight metropolitan local government areas. 115 centres. 1,000 food packages each, daily.
In a week where Edo residents marched against electricity bills for power they didn't receive and federal salaries arrived late, Kano ran a food distribution network at scale because a government decided people should eat.
This is what state governments can do when revenue arrives and someone chooses to spend it on people. It runs on a different clock from everything else in today's edition. That's why it's last.
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