Profiles International Human Rights Advocate

GOVERNMENT IS REQUIRED BY LAW TO TRANSFER CASH AND GRANTS TO POOR CITIZENS A few days ago, Nigeria's First Lady, Senator Remi Tinubu, urged Nigerians not to lose hope despite the country's economic challenges, saying that small-scale businesses such as selling akara (bean cake), roasting corn, and producing kulikuli require little capital and can provide a means of livelihood. Speaking on efforts to empower citizens, Senator Tinubu said her initiatives have focused on providing grants rather than loans to enable beneficiaries to start small businesses. The suggestion has been widely rejected by many Nigerians, who argue that selling akara and kulikuli cannot lift people out of poverty. However, it has become necessary to draw the attention of Nigerians to the National Social Investment Programme Agency (Establishment) Act, 2023, which imposes a legal obligation on the Federal Government to reduce poverty and unemployment. It should be understood that providing grants to poor an...

Government Has a Legal Duty to Provide Cash Transfers and Grants to Poor Citizens, Falana Says Daniel Nduka Okonkwo Profiles International Human Rights Advocate Human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, has stated that the Federal Government is under a legal obligation, not a discretionary political choice, to provide cash transfers, grants, and other social protection interventions for poor and vulnerable Nigerians under the National Social Investment Programme Agency (Establishment) Act, 2023. In a statement released on Sunday, Falana said public discourse on poverty alleviation should be guided by the provisions of the law rather than by charity or goodwill. His remarks follow comments by Nigeria's First Lady, who recently urged Nigerians not to lose hope despite the country's economic challenges. She said small-scale businesses such as selling akara, roasting corn, and producing kulikuli require relatively little capital and can provide sustainable livelihoods. Ac...

 The PFIPC Dossier: Femi Falana, SAN, Calls for a Broader Investigation into the PFIPC Controversy By Daniel Nduka Okonkwo Exclusive: Human rights lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Chief Femi Falana, speaks to Profiles International Human Rights Advocate on the PFIPC controversy. A curious paradox sits at the heart of Nigeria's latest governance controversy. According to records reviewed in the course of this investigation, a federal agency that the Presidency insists never existed somehow acquired a domain name ending in gov.ng, is reported to have occupied office space inside the Federal Secretariat Complex in Abuja, is said to have opened dollar and pound domiciliary accounts at the Central Bank of Nigeria, reportedly secured a Treasury Single Account, obtained recruitment approvals for over three hundred staff from the Office of the Head of Service, and appears in the 2026 Appropriation Act with a budget line of ₦1,302,978,784. If the Presidential Foreign Investment Promot...

The Documentary Trail That Complicates the Presidency's Claim About the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council By Daniel Nduka Okonkwo For months, the Presidency insisted that the Presidential Foreign Investment Promotion Council never existed. Official documents now in the public domain complicate that claim. They show that the Office of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation did not merely become aware of the council in passing. Registry stamps and correspondence indicate that it received documents bearing the council's name, processed them through its official registry, and forwarded them to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission for action, months before the Presidency publicly declared the body fictitious. These records raise a legitimate question: how did a government office come to formally process requests from an entity the Presidency now insists never legally existed? At the centre of the paper trail is a letter dated November 21, 2024, sig...

How an Oil Superpower Became a Nation Paying More for Fuel Than America: The Stark Reality of ₦70,000 Nigerian Wages vs. ₦1.72 Million U.S. Minimum Wage By Daniel Nduka Okonkwo Nigerians should not be compelled to endure fuel pump prices that tower above those in the United States, particularly when Nigeria itself is an oil-producing nation. The situation is indefensible: despite global crude oil prices falling from over $120 to about $72 per barrel, local pump prices remain exorbitant at around ₦1,250 to ₦1,350 per liter. This is not merely an economic issue, it is a matter of justice. Citizens are being squeezed by deregulation policies, foreign exchange volatility, and exploitative practices by marketers who swiftly raise prices when global oil benchmarks climb but stubbornly resist lowering them when costs decline, a pattern rooted in a government policy shift toward market-driven fuel pricing that removed state subsidies. Nigeria is one of the world's major oil producers, yet ...

 The DSS Is Not the Custodian of the Court: Sowore's Persecution and Nigeria's Widening Pattern of Judicial Obstruction By Daniel Nduka Okonkwo The denial of accredited media access to the Federal High Court in Abuja during the ongoing trial of activist Omoyele Sowore raises profound concerns about Nigeria's commitment to constitutional guarantees of press freedom and open justice. Security agencies such as the Department of State Services are mandated to safeguard national security, but the exclusion of some journalists from a public hearing, without clear justification, creates the perception of secrecy and undermines public confidence in judicial transparency. This incident, documented by multiple observers, implicates fundamental rights enshrined in Sections 22 and 39 of the 1999 Nigerian Constitution, as well as Nigeria's obligations under international treaties including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and ...

A Response to Bashir Yusuf Ibrahim: On Evidence, Monopoly, and the Questions Power Would Rather Not Answer By Daniel Nduka Okonkwo Bashir Yusuf Ibrahim's rebuttal of my June 27, 2026 article on the Dangote Petroleum Refinery is energetic, detailed, and in several respects ambitious. Where it engages verifiable facts, it deserves engagement in kind. Where it relies on inference without identifying supporting evidence, that distinction should be acknowledged clearly. I intend to do both, and I intend to do so on the public record. Ibrahim's rebuttal never states its central premise openly, but that premise governs every paragraph he writes: that a company which has achieved enough may reasonably expect scrutiny to stop. It is the logic of scale as exemption. By marshalling operational data, export figures, investor enthusiasm, and national pride as though they collectively constitute an answer to questions of market structure and regulatory adequacy, Ibrahim is not rebutting inve...

The Fear of Tyranny: Discrepancies in Nigeria’s State Police Reform and the Challenges of Democratic Governance By Daniel Nduka Okonkwo The country's uncharted constitutional territory, a landmark reform, now devolves policing powers to all 36 states for the first time in the country's history.  The move promises a more localised approach to security in a nation long plagued by insurgency, banditry, and communal violence. Yet it also raises fears, well-founded fears, of unchecked executive power at the state level, where weak institutions, political patronage, and a culture of impunity could rapidly transform law enforcement into a tool of repression. Between the hope of safer communities and the risk of authoritarian abuse lies a fault line that may well determine the trajectory of Nigeria's democracy. For decades, the Nigerian Police Force operated as a monolith: one command, one headquarters in Abuja, and one chain of authority radiating outward across a country of over ...