Business

How Systems-Driven Education Interventions Can Rebuild Nigeria’s Workforce

Published

3 weeks ago

July 31, 2026

Preport

PRESS RELEASE—Nigeria’s most damaging infrastructure deficit may not be roads, power or ports, but a weak education system producing too few work-ready citizens for an economy seeking to industrialise, digitalise and compete. With about 10.5 million primary-school-age children out of school and only about one in four children aged 7 to 14 able to read a simple sentence or handle basic numeracy, education can no longer be treated as a peripheral social concern. It is core national infrastructure.

This is why Nigeria must move beyond the old model of corporate philanthropy in education — the one-off donation, ceremonial scholarship or isolated classroom block — and encourage interventions that strengthen the full learning pipeline. The NNPC/Seplat Energy Joint Venture’s education model offers a useful example because it spans teacher development, student competition, school infrastructure, scholarships and entrepreneurship support. Its value lies not only in scale, but in structure: it treats education as a system, not a photo opportunity.

Host Community Impact at a Glance

34% of Seplat’s 780 undergraduate scholarships have gone to students from host communities.
The Seplat JV PEARLs Quiz is open to secondary schools in Delta, Edo and Imo States, with more states to follow.
Since 2012, PEARLs Quiz has impacted 61,035 teachers and students.
₦101 million in prize funding has supported school projects such as libraries, classroom blocks and buses.
STEP has recorded 1,334 educators trained, including 1,232 secondary-school teachers and 102 Ministry of Education staff.

Too often, companies still approach education through isolated gestures that create goodwill but little systemic change. Nigeria now needs a more disciplined and ambitious full value-chain approach that addresses teachers, students, learning environments, progression pathways and employability as linked parts of one ecosystem.

What distinguishes the Seplat model is that it works across several pressure points at once. Teacher quality is improved through structured capacity building. Student motivation is reinforced through academic competition and recognition. Schools receive infrastructure support. Scholarships widen access to tertiary education, while entrepreneurship training connects learning to economic independence. The logic is simple: if a system is broken at several points, meaningful intervention cannot occur at only one.

The same systems thinking is visible in host communities and host states. PEARLs Quiz rewards academic excellence while leaving behind assets that strengthen schools long after the competition ends. STEP focuses on the teacher as the multiplier: a scholarship may transform one student, but a strong teacher can influence hundreds over time. The undergraduate scholarship allocation also shows a balance between national reach and local responsibility, recognising the special obligation companies have to communities closest to their operations.

The policy lesson is clear. Every serious sector in Nigeria depends on education for its future workforce: energy needs engineers and technicians; healthcare needs skilled professionals; agriculture and manufacturing need technical competence; and the digital economy needs software, design and analytical talent. Poor education today becomes poor productivity tomorrow. Private-sector participation in education should therefore be recognised not as optional benevolence, but as enlightened self-interest and national economic strategy.

For government, the task is to mobilise private-sector capital and execution capacity through intentional partnerships with federal and state education authorities. For companies, the challenge is to move from random acts of generosity to structured interventions that improve learning quality, teacher capability, school infrastructure and access pathways. For the media, the responsibility is to distinguish interventions that genuinely move systems from those that merely generate headlines.

Seplat Energy’s model is worthy of attention because it goes beyond the one-off gesture. It links teachers to students, students to facilities, facilities to opportunity, and opportunity to long-term development. Nigeria does not need just more corporate interventions in education; it needs better-designed ones

The post How Systems-Driven Education Interventions Can Rebuild Nigeria’s Workforce appeared first on Business Today NG.

Related Topics:education Interventions Nigerias Rebuild SystemsDriven workforce

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Sanwo-Olu Sets Fresh Agenda to End Blackouts, as Lagos Targets 3,500MW Power Supply

Published

8 hours ago

August 21, 2026

Preport

The Governor of Lagos State, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu, has reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to ending the persistent blackout and aim for a twenty four hours electricity in the state.

He said the Lagos State Government is ready to work with the critical stakeholders to actualise the targeted increase in available electricity supply to about 3,500 megawatts (MW) through coordinated action on generation, transmission, distribution and metering.

Governor Sanwo-Olu made the commitment on Thursday at the Lagos State High-Level Strategic Power Town Hall, held at Lagos House, Marina, to critically assess the state’s electricity situation and develop practical solutions to the challenges affecting generation, transmission and distribution.

The high-level engagement was attended by stakeholders across the electricity value chain, including regulators, power distributors, transmission operators, asset managers, investors and representatives of the Federal Government and Lagos State Government.

The town hall meeting focused on how Lagos can leverage its enormous electricity demand, existing infrastructure and emerging state electricity market to attract investment and deliver more reliable power to homes, businesses and industries.

Speaking at the town hall meeting, Governor Sanwo-Olu called for stronger coordination, smart metering, better data management, enforcement and revenue assurance as panacea to the perennial challenges facing the sector. He said stakeholders must work together to build consumer confidence and attract investment.

Also speaking, the Minister of Power, Mr. Joseph Tegbe, who was represented by the Director of Distribution Services in the Federal Ministry of Power, Engr. Baba Mustapha, said Lagos requires more than 6,000MW, but currently receives far less from the national grid.

He stressed that increased generation would have limited impact without adequate transmission and distribution infrastructure, identifying gas supply, generation, transmission capacity, distribution bottlenecks and metering as key priorities.

The Special Adviser to the President on Power and Chairman of the Presidential Taskforce on Power Sector Reset and Restoration, Dr. Rilwan Lanre Babalola, said the challenge before Lagos and Nigeria was no longer simply about generating more electricity, but about building a functional and sustainable electricity market.

He said the country must move away from a system where government continuously acts as buyer, guarantor and absorber of losses across the electricity value chain.

Babalola explained that the proposed Clean Lagos Electricity Market (CLEM) could provide a practical model for transforming Lagos’ huge electricity demand into a structured and investable market through demand aggregation, bilateral contracting, open access, payment assurance and transparent settlement.

He said stakeholders must be able to establish where the demand and customers are, where electricity and gas will come from, whether the network can deliver the power, the efficient tariff and how payments will move transparently to generators, network operators and gas suppliers.

Babalola also highlighted the importance of decentralisation following constitutional amendments and the Electricity Act, which have opened the way for states to establish and regulate their electricity markets.

Also speaking, the Lagos State Commissioner for Energy and Mineral Resources, Mr. Abiodun Ogunleye, said the town hall meeting was convened to bring an end to what he described as the culture of blackout in Lagos.

He said Lagos State would develop clear action points and establish a baseline for measuring progress at the proposed six-month review.

On tariffs, Ogunleye stressed that improved electricity supply must accompany payment, insisting that consumers should not be made to pay for darkness

He explained that achieving the target would allow more feeders to operate and provide increased electricity to homes and industries that require reliable power for productive activities.

Ogunleye also disclosed that newly commissioned substations would contribute to the state’s power infrastructure, while the government would work with distribution companies to monitor selected feeders and measure improvements in electricity supply.

The Chief Executive Officer of the Lagos State Electricity Regulatory Commission, Temitope George, identified constraints in generation and transmission, energy theft, vandalism and non-payment of electricity bills as major challenges affecting the sector.

George urged electricity consumers to pay for the power they consume, warning that non-payment distorts the electricity market and ultimately affects the ability of other consumers to receive adequate supply.

She said Lagos State is also exploring embedded power generation to complement electricity from the national grid and reduce overdependence on the national system.

The town hall ended with a commitment by stakeholders to translate the discussions into concrete action points, establish measurable baselines and periodically assess progress.

The post Sanwo-Olu Sets Fresh Agenda to End Blackouts, as Lagos Targets 3,500MW Power Supply appeared first on Business Today NG.

Business

AI could help Nigeria, other developing economies achieve century of progress in decade

Published

16 hours ago

August 20, 2026

Preport

Artificial intelligence (AI) could help developing countries achieve in a decade what might otherwise take a century, according to the World Bank’s report.

The lender said governments must act swiftly to address gaps in electricity, connectivity, skills and institutional quality that could leave them behind.

The World Bank disclosed this in its latest World Development Report 2026, titled ‘The Promise of Artificial Intelligence’.

The report surveyed enterprises’ AI adoption in developing economies, sampling 777 firms in Nigeria.

The World Bank, in its report, urged developing economies to adopt an optimistic mindset, noting that AI could help governments reach billions of underserved people with medical, legal, educational, and agricultural services more quickly.

“AI could help extend otherwise costly medical, legal, educational, and agricultural services to the underserved billions—doing in a decade what might otherwise take a century,” the report stated.

It noted that jobs in high-income countries are more than three times as likely to be at risk of automation by generative AI as those in low- and middle-income countries, where 4.5 per cent of existing jobs are at risk, compared with 14.2 per cent in high-income countries.

At the same time, 16.2 per cent of jobs in developing economies could see their productivity meaningfully boosted by AI, close to the 18.7 per cent expected in high-income countries.
The greatest promise for developing countries lies not in replacing workers, but in amplifying what they can do, the report said.

“AI has thrown developing economies a lifeline, and they should seize it,” Indermit Gill, Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank Group, added in the report.

He explained that developing economies do not need large models or big data centres to reap the benefits of AI adoption.

By adapting small, low-cost AI tools to local conditions, they can bring better medical care, education, judicial services and agricultural extension within reach of millions, the World Bank chief stated.

The report is the first comprehensive assessment of AI’s implications for developing countries, revealing how businesses and governments there have begun to use AI.

It revealed that AI is already helping people, businesses, and governments solve problems, analyse information, improve forecasts and deliver services on a larger scale.

These capabilities are especially valuable in countries where trained professionals, reliable records and public capacity are often limited.

According to the World Bank, AI tools can make it easier for doctors to diagnose patients, farmers to make better crop decisions, and businesses to become more productive.

Governments, too, could use AI to improve tax collection, social programmes, disaster response, healthcare, and education, it added.

The lender said AI could significantly boost the weak growth performance of developing countries before the end of the 2020s while delivering tangible benefits to people.

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The report added that the opportunity is limited, noting that most developing economies still lack the power, internet access, data, skills and institutions needed to use AI effectively.

The report stated that, without deliberate action, AI could widen disparities between countries, increase inequality within them, concentrate market power, weaken trust in public institutions, and create new risks to safety, rights, and social cohesion.

The report outlines a clear three-stage approach: adopt available tools, tailor them to local circumstances, and gradually progress towards frontier AI development.