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‎When Chiamaka left her small phone-accessories shop in Lagos on the morning of 1 August 2024, she expected a difficult day. The #EndBadGovernance protests had been announced for days, and many customers had warned that they would stay indoors. What she did not expect was that her main connection to the outside world, her mobile data would become unreliable just as she needed it most.

‎By midday, messages from suppliers would not load. Her bank app kept spinning. A customer who had promised to transfer money for a bulk order could not confirm payment. “I was not afraid of the protest,” she later told this reporter. “I was afraid of being cut off.”

‎Her experience captures a growing concern in Nigeria: that network disruptions and social media restrictions during periods of political tension do not only silence protest. They can also obstruct emergency assistance, journalism, business, and the documentation of possible abuses.

‎The #EndBadGovernance protests began on 1 August 2024, as Nigerians across several states mobilised against inflation, corruption, hardship and the economic consequences of fuel-subsidy removal. The movement was organised largely online, with citizens using X, Instagram, WhatsApp and other platforms to share routes, safety information and demands.

‎On that first day, many users reported unusually slow internet services. MTN Nigeria’s network was widely reported to have slowed as the protests began, while subscribers across different networks complained that uploads, live videos and messaging apps were difficult to use.

‎The Federal Government denied ordering telecommunications operators to disrupt services. Bosun Tijani, then Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, said there was no instruction to tamper with networks and suggested that heavy usage could explain the slow connections.

‎But 36 civil society organisations disagreed. In a letter to the Office of the National Security Adviser, the Nigerian Communications Commission and the Association of Licensed Telecommunications Operators of Nigeria, they alleged a nationwide throttling of internet speed intended to slow the spread of information. They argued that such disruptions violated constitutional guarantees of expression, assembly and association.

‎Whether the disruption was deliberate or technical, the effect was real. For hours, citizens struggled to share information at the exact moment when accurate information mattered most.

‎Digital rights advocates often describe internet access during protests as a public-safety issue, not merely a convenience. A phone is how a protester calls for medical help, tells family members where they are, or shares the location of violence.

‎During the August 2024 protests, Amnesty International reported that at least 24 protesters were killed, many allegedly shot with live ammunition at close range. Human Rights Watch also documented violence in Abuja, Gombe and Kano, with scores of arrests.

‎In such an atmosphere, a delayed video, a failed emergency call or an inaccessible map can have consequences far beyond frustration. A protester injured near a crowded junction may depend on someone nearby seeing a message and calling for help. A parent searching for a child may rely on WhatsApp. A volunteer medic may need real-time directions to reach an injured person.

‎The danger is not theoretical. Nigeria has previously experienced a full social media ban: the federal government suspended Twitter for 222 days in 2021, a period during which small businesses, freelancers, journalists and activists lost a vital channel for communication and income. Research on digital rights in Nigeria notes that the ban caused economic losses and particularly affected small and medium-sized enterprises dependent on the platform.

‎Network disruptions also make it harder for j ournalists to do their work. Reporting a protest requires more than being physically present. Reporters need to verify videos, contact sources, publish updates and alert editors when conditions become dangerous.

‎During #EndBadGovernance, media workers faced direct risks as well. The European Union Agency for Asylum documented arrests and physical attacks against journalists covering the protests, including an attack on a Channels Television vehicle carrying about 11 journalists in Kano on 1 August 2024.

‎CIVICUS reported that at least 56 journalists were attacked, harassed or detained while covering the August 2024 protests.  The Committee to Protect Journalists and other press-freedom groups have also raised concerns that Nigeria’s Cybercrimes Act, even after its 2024 amendment, remains broad enough to be used against journalists and online critics.

‎A journalist who cannot upload footage quickly may lose the chance to preserve evidence. A citizen who records police conduct may be unable to back up the file before their phone is seized. In both cases, the public loses part of the record.

‎This is why digital rights organisations argue that connectivity during protests should be treated as part of press freedom. If reporters cannot transmit, the public cannot know. If citizens cannot document, accountability becomes harder.

‎The people least involved in political confrontation often suffer the most from connectivity failures. Market traders, delivery riders, online vendors, POS operators, tailors taking orders through WhatsApp, and young people running small digital businesses all depend on stable mobile data.

‎For Chiamaka, one slow afternoon meant lost sales and an anxious customer. For a delivery rider, it can mean cancelled orders. For a trader in Onitsha or Aba, it can mean missing a supplier’s message about a price change. For a student selling thrift clothes on Instagram, it can mean losing a buyer to a competitor whose network is working.

‎The economic damage is especially severe because many Nigerian small businesses operate with thin margins. They do not have advertising budgets or backup systems. Their business is often their phone.

‎The #EndBadGovernance period also coincided with broader pressure on civic space. Several states declared curfews during the protests, and more than 1,100 people were reportedly arrested.  When physical movement is restricted and digital communication is unreliable, ordinary people have fewer ways to protect their livelihoods or seek help.

‎Concerns about digital restrictions are not limited to Lagos or Abuja. Protest activity and security operations in the Southeast have repeatedly raised questions about how information moves during tense periods. Residents and activists have long complained that heavy security presence, curfews and communication difficulties make it difficult to verify events in real time.

‎While Nigeria has not recorded a recent nationwide shutdown on the scale of some other countries, Freedom House’s 2025 report noted that Nigerians used #EndBadGovernance to mobilise protests in August and September 2024, while police arrested or detained hundreds of demonstrators. It also recorded more than 30 network disruptions in May 2025, although most were linked to fibre cuts, blackouts, vandalism and infrastructure theft.

‎That distinction matters. Not every outage is political. But when disruptions repeatedly occur around protests, elections or security operations, citizens are entitled to clear, prompt and independent explanations. Transparency is not an attack on national security; it is a condition for public trust.

‎Nigeria needs a clear legal and policy framework that makes internet shutdowns and unjustified network throttling exceptional, lawful, necessary and proportionate. At present, citizens are often left to guess whether a disruption is technical, commercial or politically motivated.

‎Stronger digital rights protection should include:

‎- A legal presumption against internet shutdowns, with any restriction subject to judicial oversight and strict time limits.

‎- A duty on the Nigerian Communications Commission to publish prompt, detailed explanations whenever major network disruptions occur.

‎- Protection for journalists, medics, lawyers and monitors who use digital tools to document protests.

‎- Clear limits on the use of the Cybercrimes Act, so it cannot be deployed to punish legitimate reporting or online criticism.

‎- Compensation or regulatory remedies for businesses and individuals who suffer measurable losses from unjustified disruptions.

‎- Consultation with civil society, telecommunications operators and media organisations before any emergency measure affecting communications.

‎Digital rights groups, including Paradigm Initiative and partners in the e-RIGHTS project, have argued that deliberately disrupting internet services silences citizens and prevents them from accessing information, engaging in public debate and exercising civic rights.

‎Nigeria’s young population lives online. They organise, trade, learn, worship, campaign and seek help through their phones. Any government that treats connectivity as a threat misunderstands modern Nigerian life.

‎The real challenge is not whether citizens will use the internet during protests. They will. The question is whether the state will protect their ability to speak, document, trade and survive—or treat every network connection as a potential security risk.

‎Chiamaka reopened her shop the next day. Her data connection had improved. But she still keeps a small notebook beside her till, recording orders in case the network fails again.

‎“I do not want to be against government,” she said. “I only want to be able to work, and to call somebody if something happens.”

‎That simple demand should not be controversial. In a democracy, the right to communicate is not a luxury. It is a safeguard.

‎The first cruelty often begins before the burial. In parts of Imo and Anambra, a woman who has just lost her husband may have her hair forcibly shaved, be confined to a room, or be made to sit on the bare floor while relatives decide what remains of her life. In Sokoto, some widows face a quieter but equally devastating loss: eviction from homes they helped build and shared for decades.

‎Across Nigeria’s South-East and parts of the North, harmful widowhood practices are no longer only rituals of mourning. They have become instruments of economic dispossession. Land, houses, shops, savings and even children are contested the moment a husband dies, leaving many widows poor, homeless and dependent on the very relatives who pushed them out.

‎In several Igbo communities, mourning was traditionally understood as a period of respect, purification and communal solidarity. But the practices attached to it have often crossed into humiliation. Reports from Imo State describe widows being compelled to shave their heads, swear at shrines, remain in seclusion, or drink water used to wash a deceased husband’s corpse to prove innocence.

‎The deeper injury, however, is financial. A widow may be accused of causing the death, denied access to her husband’s accounts, prevented from entering the family compound, or told that she has no right to his land because she bore no son. In some cases, relatives seize the property while the widow is still observing mourning rites.

‎A woman in one documented case lost her husband, a police inspector, only for her late husband’s sister to chase her from the family house and order her back to her father’s home because she had no child for the deceased. Her grief had barely settled before her home, security and means of survival were taken from her.

‎Such stories repeat with painful regularity. In Ogidi, Anambra State, researchers and journalists have recorded mourning periods lasting up to a year, during which widows were restricted to the house, made to sit on the bare floor for weeks and required to keep their heads shaved.  What appears externally as custom can, in practice, become a system that weakens a woman at the exact moment she is most vulnerable.

‎The economic dimension has become increasingly difficult to ignore. Where urban expansion, road construction, commercial farming and rising land values have made family land more valuable, disputes over inheritance have intensified. A widow’s presence can become an obstacle to relatives who want unrestricted control of a deceased man’s property.

‎In Imo, investigations have found that property confiscation, deprivation and forceful eviction are explicitly recognised among harmful widowhood practices under Section 17(2) of the state’s Violence Against Persons Prohibition Law. The law also prohibits compulsory shaving of hair, forced swearing at shrines, taking a widow’s children without consent, and forcing her into seclusion.

‎This is not merely cultural misunderstanding. It is often calculated dispossession. A widow may be pressured to “release” land for family use, sign documents she does not understand, or surrender title deeds to male relatives. Once she leaves the matrimonial home, reclaiming property becomes expensive, slow and socially isolating.

‎The pattern is not confined to the South-East. In Sokoto, Hajia Asma’u Malami, widow of former Nigerian Ambassador to South Africa, Alhaji Shehu Malami, went to court after her stepson allegedly attempted to evict her from the house where she had lived with her late husband for 45 years. Her case showed that widowhood-related property disputes can affect women across class, religion and region.

‎For poorer widows, the consequences are harsher. A woman who loses a small shop, a parcel of farmland or a family house may lose her children’s school fees, her food security and her standing in the community at once. Dispossession, therefore, is not a single event; it sets off a long decline into poverty.

‎Nigeria does not lack laws. What it often lacks is the political will, awareness and institutional follow-through to enforce them.

‎Anambra State’s Malpractices Against Widows and Widowers (Prohibition) Law of 2005 was an early attempt to confront the problem. It prohibits the maltreatment of widows and widowers and affirms that fundamental rights belong to every widow or widower.  The law also states that a widow or widower should not be forcibly dispossessed of property acquired or used by the couple during the deceased spouse’s lifetime.

‎The federal Violence Against Persons (Prohibition) Act, signed into law in 2015, and state VAPP laws have strengthened protection further. In Anambra, the 2017 VAPP Law prescribes a maximum of four years’ imprisonment, a fine not exceeding N400,000, or both, for harmful traditional practices.  Imo’s VAPP Law similarly names forced shaving, dispossession, eviction and seclusion as offences.

‎Yet many widows do not know these protections exist. Others fear stigma, threats, spiritual intimidation or complete exclusion from their husband’s family if they report abuse. Police officers, court officials and local leaders may themselves treat the matter as a private family affair rather than a criminal and human-rights violation.

‎The result is a gap between legal rights and lived reality. A law on paper cannot protect a widow who is locked in a room, denied food, or driven from her home before she can reach a lawyer.

‎Change has also come from within communities. In Anambra, the state government and traditional institutions have publicly identified harmful widowhood rites and girl-child disinheritance as drivers of violence against women and girls.

‎The Anambra Council of Traditional Rulers has pledged to eliminate harmful traditional practices, including the disinheritance of widows. The council also committed to codifying communal rules that protect women and girls, and to respecting the Supreme Court position that females have a right to inherit family property whether married or not.

‎Such interventions matter because customary authority still carries weight in many villages. When a traditional ruler declares that no widow should be shaved, confined, accused of witchcraft or driven from her husband’s house, he changes what relatives believe they can do with impunity.

‎Anambra’s Speaker has also urged traditional rulers across the state to abolish degrading customs targeting widows, stressing that the law prohibiting widowhood malpractices remains active and enforceable.  Public condemnation is not a complete solution, but it gives widows language, legitimacy and local protection.

‎Legal aid organisations, women’s rights groups and community paralegals are increasingly filling the gap between victims and formal justice.

‎In Anambra, organisations including the International Federation of Women Lawyers, the National Human Rights Commission, the Legal Aid Council and family-law support centres have worked to end harmful practices against widows.  FIDA has used alternative dispute resolution where possible, but provides free legal services when perpetrators refuse to release inherited property or when court action becomes necessary.

‎Paralegals are especially important in rural communities. They may not always be lawyers, but they understand local customs, can document abuses, explain rights in plain language, accompany widows to police stations or courts, and connect them to legal representation. For a widow who cannot afford a lawyer, that first conversation can determine whether she loses everything or fights back.

‎Their work is slow and often invisible. It involves sitting with frightened women, persuading reluctant relatives, confronting village heads, gathering documents and pushing cases through systems that were not designed with poor women in mind. But it is producing results: some widows have recovered property, remained in their homes, or negotiated settlements that preserve their dignity.

‎Behind every legal provision is a woman learning to live after loss. She may have spent years supporting her husband’s business, farming his land, raising his children or maintaining the family home. Yet within days of his death, she can be treated as a stranger.

‎The psychological harm is severe. Widows describe shame, fear, sleeplessness and the humiliation of being treated as suspects in their husbands’ deaths. Some are pressured to remarry a relative of the deceased; others are denied access to their children.

‎The economic harm is equally lasting. Without land or income, a widow may become dependent on relatives who earlier dispossessed her. Her daughters may be withdrawn from school. Her sons may grow up believing that their mother’s suffering was normal. In this way, harmful widowhood practices reproduce poverty and gender inequality across generations.

‎Nigeria cannot claim to protect women’s rights while allowing widows to be stripped of property in the name of culture. Culture should provide comfort in grief, not turn bereavement into economic punishment.

‎The way forward requires stronger enforcement of the VAPP laws, public education in markets, churches, mosques, town unions and village meetings, and sustained funding for legal aid and paralegal services. Traditional rulers must not only condemn harmful rites but also discipline those who enforce them. Police and courts must treat widow dispossession as a serious offence, not a domestic misunderstanding.

‎Most importantly, widows must be heard not as victims alone, but as women with rights, memories, labour and claims to justice. Some have already fought back in court. Others have found protection through paralegals, women’s groups and reform-minded traditional rulers.

‎Their resistance shows that harmful widowhood practices are not unchangeable. They survive because they are permitted to survive. When communities, courts and families refuse to look away, a widow can mourn her husband without losing her home, her land or her future.

‎When the water came last September, it did not knock.

‎In Kirikasamma, Jigawa State, 42-year-old Hadiza Ali woke at 2 a.m. to find brown water swallowing her half-hectare rice nursery. She grabbed her two children and a bag of seeds, wading through waist-high water to higher ground. When she returned three days later, nothing was left not the seedlings, not the small mud silo where she stored last season's grain, not the wooden marker that showed where her farm ended and her brother-in-law's began.

‎"I have farmed this land for 11 years, since my husband died. I lease it every year," Hadiza said, sitting on a mat in an IDP camp near Hadejia. "This year, I lost everything in one night. Government gave us one bag of rice for five people. No seeds. No fertilizer. How do I start again?"

‎Hadiza is one of an estimated 70% of smallholder farmers in Nigeria who are women and one of the most exposed to a triple crisis that experts say current agricultural policy was never designed to handle: catastrophic flooding, high fuel costs, and fertilizer scarcity.

‎Nigeria has a National Flood Emergency Preparedness and Response Plan. It has a National Agricultural Technology and Innovation Policy (NATIP) 2022-2027. What it does not have, critics say, is a policy that recognizes that a woman farmer in a floodplain is not the same as a male farmer with land title.

‎"The existing flood insurance and early warning systems are routed through landowners and recognized cooperatives, which are 85% male-headed," says Dr. Nnenna Okafor, agricultural economist at the University of Agriculture, Makurdi. "So when NIMET sends a flood alert, it goes to the chairman of the farmers association. The women who actually plant in the lowlands never get it."

‎In Bayelsa, 38-year-old Ebiere Jonah cultivates cassava and plantain on two plots in Yenagoa LGA. During the 2024 floods, she lost 1.5 hectares. Because she farms on family land belonging to her late husband's clan, without a formal title, she was automatically disqualified from the state government's flood compensation scheme that required proof of Certificate of Occupancy.

‎"I was told to bring my husband," she recalled. "I told them my husband has been dead since 2020."

‎The policy gap is stark: Compensation is tied to land ownership, not to cultivation. For women who access land through marriage, lease, or communal goodwill, that means total exclusion.

‎If flooding is the sudden shock, fuel price is the slow bleed.

‎Since the removal of fuel subsidy in 2023, the cost of transporting produce from farm to market has more than tripled. For women farmers, who typically farm smaller, more remote plots and depend on shared motorcycles or mini-buses, the impact is disproportionate.

‎Take Mary Ishaya, 55, a tomato farmer in Bokkos, Plateau State. In 2022, it cost her N3,000 to transport 10 baskets of tomatoes from her village to Jos market. In late 2025, the same trip cost N11,500.

‎"So I have two choices," she says. "Sell to the middleman in the village for half price, or spend all my profit on transport and come back with nothing. Last month I left three baskets to rot because I could not pay the bike."

‎NATIP promised subsidized rural transport and aggregation centers to reduce post-harvest loss, which stands at 40% for tomatoes. In Plateau, Benue, and Kaduna Nigeria's vegetable basket, less than 15% of those centers are functional, according to a 2025 audit by the Centre for Food and Agricultural Development. Most have no cold storage, no power, and no female managers, making them culturally inaccessible for many northern women.

‎"Policy talks about mechanization like tractors and harvesters. But for a woman with half a hectare, what she needs is a N5,000 transport voucher, a tricycle that women can ride, a storage sack that keeps tomatoes for two more days. That's not in the policy," Dr. Okafor argues.

‎The third leg of the crisis is fertilizer.

‎Nigeria's Presidential Fertilizer Initiative (PFI) was meant to make NPK 20-10-10 available at N15,000 per bag. On the open market in 2025/2026 farming season, it sells for between N38,000 and N45,000 in the north, and up to N52,000 in the southeast.

‎Even at the subsidized rate, access is skewed. Distribution is handled through state agricultural development programmes and large agro-dealers, who prefer to sell in bulk like 50 to 100 bags to male commercial farmers.

‎In Ebonyi State, 29-year-old Chinonso Okoro, leader of a 23-member women's cassava cooperative in Izzi LGA, describes the routine. "They tell us to come back tomorrow. We go every day for a week. Then they say fertilizer is finished. But if you see the big trucks loading for big men, you know it is not finished."

‎When the women did get fertilizer, they discovered it was adulterated mixed with sand. Their cassava yields dropped by 60%.

‎Forced to adapt, Chinonso's group has turned to what policy has ignored: local solutions. With training from an NGO, they now produce compost from poultry waste and rice husks and practice sack farming on raised platforms to avoid floods. Their yield is smaller, but they are no longer dependent on the government supply chain.

‎"Government calls us smallholder farmers. But we are not small. We feed the nation. We just need policy that sees us," she says.

‎What Needs to Change

‎Experts point to three glaring gaps:

‎1. From land-based to labor-based protection: Flood compensation, credit, and insurance must be tied to proof of farming photos, cooperative membership, extension officer verification not just land titles.

‎2. Gender-responsive input delivery: The Federal Ministry of Agriculture should earmark 40% of subsidized fertilizer and implement last-mile delivery through women's cooperatives, not just agro-dealers. Ebonyi's model of using female extension agents increased uptake by 33% in one pilot year.

‎3. Climate adaptation funds that reach the ground: Nigeria has access to over $400 million in climate adaptation funding. Less than 5% reaches women farmers. Earmarking transport vouchers, raised-bed farming kits, and solar dryers specifically for women-led farms would close the gap between policy and practice.

‎As the next rainy season approaches, Hadiza Ali in Jigawa is still waiting. She has saved N12,000 from selling firewood. It is not enough for a bag of fertilizer, let alone to lease land again.

‎"If they want to protect women farmers," she says, "they should ask us what we need. Not write policy in Abuja and bring it to us after the flood has gone."

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‎ The school bell rang loudly as students rushed out of their classrooms, laughing and pushing one another along the crowded hallway. Among them was seventeen-year-old Amara, walking slowly with her books pressed tightly against her chest. While others talked excitedly about exams and weekend plans, Amara’s mind was heavy with fear.  

‎For weeks now, she had been feeling sick in the mornings. She could barely concentrate in class anymore. Deep down, she already suspected the truth, but she was terrified to confirm it.   

‎Amara came from a strict home where conversations about relationships, puberty, or sexual health were forbidden. Anytime such topics appeared on television, her mother quickly changed the channel. In school, the teachers skipped over chapters related to reproductive health as if they were dangerous subjects. Students were left to learn from rumors, jokes, social media, and friends who were just as confused as they were.   

‎When Amara started dating an older boy from her neighborhood, she believed everything he told her. She did not fully understand consent, protection, or the emotional consequences of her choices. She had questions, but she was too ashamed to ask anyone. She feared being judged more than she feared being uninformed.  

‎One rainy afternoon, Amara finally gathered the courage to visit a small clinic after school. The nurse looked at her gently before speaking the words that changed her life forever.

‎“You’re pregnant.”  

‎The world around her suddenly felt silent. Amara thought about her dreams of becoming a lawyer. She thought about her mother’s disappointment, the gossip from classmates, and the possibility of dropping out of school. Tears rolled down her face as she realized that one conversation, one lesson, one trusted adult could have changed everything.  

‎Back at school, whispers spread quickly. Some students mocked her. Others avoided her completely. Very few people asked how she felt. Nobody seemed

‎to realize that behind the rumors was a frightened teenager whose life had been turned upside down.  

‎A few months later, the school invited a health educator named Mrs. Daniels to speak to the students. Unlike others before her, she spoke honestly and compassionately. She explained puberty, relationships, consent, contraception, sexually transmitted infections, and emotional responsibility. She encouraged students to ask questions freely without fear of embarrassment.  

‎The room was unusually quiet as students listened carefully. Many of them, like Amara once had, were carrying silent confusion and fear. Mrs. Daniels looked at the class and said softly, “Ignorance has never protected anyone. Knowledge does.”  

‎Those words stayed in Amara’s mind. For the first time, she realized that comprehensive sex education was not something shameful. It was protection. It was guidance. It was the difference between confidence and confusion, safety and regret.   

‎Many adults argue that teaching sex education encourages bad behavior among teenagers. But the reality is that young people are already lexposed to information every day through social media, movies, friends, and the internet. When schools refuse to educate them properly, they do not remain innocent — they remain vulnerable.   

‎Comprehensive sex education teaches more than sex. It teaches respect, boundaries, self-worth, and responsibility. It helps young people recognize abuse, avoid dangerous situations, and make informed decisions about their future. It creates a safe space where students can learn the truth instead of depending on harmful misinformation.   

‎If Amara had received proper education earlier, perhaps her story would have been different. Perhaps she would have understood the importance of protection, emotional readiness, and personal boundaries. Perhaps she would not have carried fear and shame alone. 

‎Every classroom contains students like Amara, young people searching for answers but afraid to ask questions.

‎"They deserve guidance, not silence"

‎"They deserve truth, not confusion" 

‎Knowledge is protection, and comprehensive sex education must reach every classroom because one honest lesson can save a future, protect a dream, and even save a life.