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The last couple of weeks in Nigeria have been characterized by several events that point to the generally held view that Nigeria is degenerating into the abyss of a failed state.
However, the unfolding scenario is a case of mixed bag. A mixed bag of bad news and good tidings. The present scenario represents a usual portraiture of a state struggling to earn a place on the positive page of history, among the civilized comity of states on the globe.
The recent attack on the media institutions in Nigeria has become a talking point. The attack on TVC, The Nation News Paper, Lagos TV and Traffic Radio as follow up to the ENDSARS protest debacle has been described as an attack on the media institution in Nigeria.
The attack is a dangerous development because of the sacred role of the media as a catalyst to development.
An attack on the media is an attack on the rule of Law. The role of the media is enshrined in the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as amended. It is therefore sacrilegious to attack this sacred institution under any guise.
The media must not operate with fear and should not be exposed to an insecure environment. It is an overstatement to say that what happened to the media institution in parts of the country during the encroachment on the ENDSARS protest has made worse the authoritarian environment, media professionals are exposed.
It is therefore not surprising that the apex body of the journalism profession, the Nigerian guild of Editors strongly raised its voice against the sordid savagery by demanding adequate security of Media Houses and media operatives.
Thank God the institutions are back on their feet, but are groping in the shadows of fines.
The issue of fines brings to the fore ethical considerations in the media establishments.
The media should embrace ethical principles to avoid unnecessary scrutiny from regulators.The conventional media must not allow the social media to influence it negatively. The issue of credibility in the social media is a baggage the conventional media must not carry.
The media as the fourth estate of the realm should not be grouped among unprogressive institutions because of their role in protecting and defending democracy in Nigeria.
The media is a democratic institution, therefore, any attempt to demonize it, will be counter- productive to the peace and progress that we seek as a nation.
If everything fails, the media should not fail. It is the window of Nigeria to the world. Sadly, uninformed persons who are generally described as hoodlums because of their involvement in wanton looting of public property are products of the failing Nigerian state. Any isolated condemnation or stigmatization of this unfortunate group of persons is therefore a misjudgment. It would be sanctimonious to think that they do not reflect our collective failure as a people, families and nation
Another sad commentary in the negative intrusion on the ENDSARS Protest is the destruction of courts described by lawyers as the temple of justice. When the anger of a people descends on the courts there is a clear signal that the level of depravity among the populace is increasing in leaps and bounds. It is a call to reposition the justice system for the interest of all, irrespective of class and gender or creed.
The entire Nigerian population must be positively mobilized through reorientation and born again behavior of the judiciary to respect the courts. If the high and mighty in the past as in the case of Rivers State for example in 2014, had shown serious disdain for the judiciary what would the ordinary man in the street do? The locking of the courts in that era was a bad signal.
At the level of value orientation and family value, what is an eleven-year-old child doing in a rampage among the so called hoodlums who hijacked the ENDSARS protest in Benin, Edo state? An eleven-year-old child joining the fray with a police uniform and declaring himself a DPO is the height of child abuse and sickening depravity. Shame to the adults present at the scene who urged him on, and hailed him the DPO.
Nigeria is breeding a bleak future for the younger generation.
It is most unfortunate that those who have been complaining of being shortchanged and marginalized encouraged and enjoyed this drama of the absurd. That incident and others are evil compasses leading the younger generation to where.
That a section of the youth population saw the ENDSARS protest as a trigger to perpetrate hate attack, loot and destroy public and private properties to say the least is misplaced and calls to question the moral psyche of the average Nigerian.
Nigeria can be described as the mythical evil snake that eats its tail. How for example can one describe the story of a young man who was rescued from the jaw of death along the street during the demonstration in Lagos. The young man was reported to have stolen the phone of a nurse that nursed him to life in the same hospital that took him in pro bono.
There is however a sign of hope for the younger generation of Nigerians. Young persons who looted public property in Ogun State were reported to have returned their loots at the behest of the Governor who announced amnesty for anyone who would return them. That a large number of young people returned their looted items exemplifies hope of a remorseful youth population.
According to Abraham Lincoln “if once you forfeit the confidence of your fellow citizens, you can never regain their respect and esteem.”
The leadership of this country has lost the confidence of the young adults; will they ever get it back? May be they will, if they make a swift turn around to do the needful without reneging.
The freezing of the account of twenty ENDSARS PROTEST sponsors is a sad commentary that needs to be revisited by the central Bank of Nigeria urgently.
It epitomizes a government that speaks from two sides of the mouth. Federal Government had earlier acknowledged the protest as legitimate. The sudden show of prevarication by FG and their agents, is a blatant betrayal of trust that is direly needed to move the country on the wheel of development.
By: Bon Woke
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Despite a discouraging political climate and unprecedented uncertainty in the United States clean energy sector, low costs of wind and solar energy continue to drive growth of the domestic clean energy sector.
However, while market forces continue to support the expansion of renewable energy capacity, the sector faces critical challenges extending beyond the antagonism of the Trump administration.
The continued growth of solar and wind power risks being hampered by several mitigating factors, including (but not limited to) intensifying competition over increasingly scarce suitable land plots, stressed and volatile global supply chains, lengthy and unpredictable development processes, Complex and overlapping permitting processes, and a critical talent gap.
The renewable energy labor shortage has been years in the making, but is no less closer to resolution. The issue spans both white collar and blue collar positions, and threatens to kneecap progress in the booming sector.
Between the years of 2011 and 2030, it is expected that global levels of installed wind and solar capacity will quadruple. Analysis from McKinsey & Company concludes that “this huge surge in new wind and solar installations will be almost impossible to staff with qualified development and construction employees as well as operations and maintenance workers.
“It’s unclear where these employees will come from in the future,” the McKinsey report goes on to say.
He continued that “There are too few people with specialized and relevant expertise and experience, and too many of them are departing for other companies or other industries.”
The solar and wind industries are suffering from a lack of awareness of career paths and opportunities, despite their well-established presence in domestic markets.
Emergent clean energies face an even steeper uphill battle. Geothermal energy, for example, is poised for explosive growth as one of vanishingly few carbon-free energy solutions with broad bipartisan support, but faces a severe talent gap and punishingly low levels of awareness in potential talent pools.
But while the outlook is discouraging, industry insiders argue that it’s too soon to sound the alarms. In fact, a recent report from Utility Drive contends that “solutions to the energy talent gap are hiding in plain sight.”
The article breaks down those solutions into four concrete approaches: building partnerships with educators, formulating Registered Apprenticeship pathways, updating credential requirements to reflect real-world needs, and rethinking stale recruitment strategies.
Targeting strategic alliances with educational institutions is a crucial strategy for creating a skilled workforce, particularly in emerging sectors like geothermal energy.
Businesses can, for example, partner with and sponsor programs at community colleges, creating a pipeline for the next generation of skilled workers. Apprenticeships serve a similar purpose, encouraging hands-on learning outside of the classroom. Such apprenticeships can apply to white collar positions as well as blue collar roles.
“If we can figure out a way to educate the younger generation that you can actually have a career that you can be proud of and help solve a problem the world is facing, but also work in the extractive industry, I think that could go a long way,” said Jeanine Vany, executive vice president of corporate affairs for Canadian geothermal firm Eavor, speaking about the geothermal energy talent gap.
These approaches won’t solve the talent gap overnight – especially as political developments may discourage would-be jobseekers from placing their bets on a career in the renewables sector. But they will go a long way toward mitigating the issue.
“The clean energy transition depends on a workforce that can sustain it,” reports Utility Drive. “To meet the hiring challenges, employers will benefit from looking beyond the next position to fill and working toward a strategic, industry-wide vision for attracting talent.”
By: Haley Zaremba
Lithium-ion batteries power the world around us. Their prevalence in our daily life is growing steadily, to the extent that lithium-ion batteries now power a whopping 70 percent of all rechargeable devices.
From electric vehicles to smartphones to utility-scale energy storage, lithium-ion batteries are increasingly forming the building blocks of innumerable sectors.
But despite its dominance in battery technologies, there are some serious issues with lithium supply chains that make it a less-than-ideal model upon which to base our world.
Not only is extracting lithium often extremely environmentally damaging, it’s deeply intertwined with geopolitical pressure points. China controls a huge portion of global lithium supply chains, rendering markets highly vulnerable to shocks and the political will of Beijing.
China’s control is particularly strong in the case of electric vehicle batteries, thanks to a decade-long strategy to outcompete the globe.
“For over a decade, China has meticulously orchestrated a strategic ascent in the global electric vehicle (EV) batteries market, culminating in a dominance that now presents a formidable challenge to Western manufacturers,” reports EE Times.
The effect functions as “almost a moat” around Chinese battery production, buffering the sector against international competition.
The multiple downsides and risks associated with lithium and lithium-ion battery sourcing is pushing EV companies to research alternative battery models to power the electric cars of the future.
There are a litany of lithium alternatives in research and development phases, including – but not limited to – lead, nickel-cadmium, nickel-metal hydride, sodium nickel chloride, lithium metal polymer, sodium-ion, lithium-sulfur, and solid state batteries.
Solid state batteries seem to be the biggest industry darling. Solid-state batteries use a solid electrolyte as a barrier and conductor between the cathode and anode.
These batteries don’t necessarily do away with lithium, but they can eliminate the need for graphite – another critical mineral under heavy Chinese control. Plus, solid state batteries are purported to be safer, have higher energy density, and recharge faster than lithium-ion batteries.
While solid-state batteries are still in development, they’re already being tested in some applications by car companies. Mercedes and BMW claim that they are already road-testing vehicles powered by solid-state batteries, but it will likely be years before we see them in any commercial context.
Subaru is on the verge of testing solid-state batteries within its vehicles, but is already employing a smaller form of the technology to power robots within its facilities.
However, while solid-state batteries are being hailed as a sort of holy grail for battery tech, some think that the promise – and progress – of solid-state batteries is overblown.
“I think there’s a lot of noise in solid state around commercial readiness that’s maybe an exaggeration of reality”, Rivian CEO RJ Scaringe said during an interview on this week’s Plugged-In Podcast.
Sodium ion batteries are also a promising contender to overtake lithium-ion batteries in the EV sector. Sodium is 1,000 times more abundant than lithium.
“It’s widely available around the world, meaning it’s cheaper to source, and less water-intensive to extract”, stated James Quinn, the CEO of U.K.-based Faradion. “It takes 682 times more water to extract one tonne of lithium versus one tonne of sodium.That is a significant amount.”
Bloomberg projections indicate that sodium-ion could displace 272,000 tons of lithium demand as soon as 2035.
But even this does not signal the death of lithium. Lithium is simply too useful in battery-making. It’s energy-dense and performs well in cold weather, making it “indispensable for high-performance applications” according to EV World.
“The future isn’t lithium or sodium—it’s both, deployed strategically across sectors…the result is a diversified, resilient battery economy.”
By: Haley Zaremba
The 9th OPEC International Seminar was held in Vienna recently, wherein participants discussed energy security, investment, climate change, and energy poverty, with a particular emphasis on balancing these competing priorities.
According to commodity analysts at Standard Chartered, the summit, titled “Charting Pathways Together: The Future of Global Energy”, featured significantly greater engagement from international oil companies and consuming country governments, with discussions converging on a more inclusive shared agenda rather than non-intersecting approaches seen in previous years.
However, StanChart reported there was a clear mismatch between what energy producers vs. market analysts think about spare production capacity.
Unlike Wall Street analysts, who frequently talk about spare capacity of 5-6 million barrels per day (mb/d), speakers from several sectors of the industry noted that spare capacity is both limited and very geographically concentrated.
StanChart believes this erroneous assumption about spare capacity has been a big drag on oil prices, and the implications for the whole forward curve of oil prices could be potentially profound once traders realize that roughly two-thirds of the capacity they thought was available on demand does not actually exist.
This makes the analysts bullish about the general shape of their forecast 2026 price trajectory (Figure 32), i.e., a set of significant upward shifts as opposed to the flat trajectory seen in the market curve and in analyst consensus.
In other words, oil prices could have as much as $15/barrel upside from current levels.
StanChart is not the only oil bull here. Goldman Sachs recently hiked its oil price forecast for H2 2025, saying the market is increasingly shifting its focus from recession fears to potential supply disruptions, low spare capacity, lower oil inventories, especially among OECD countries and production constraints by Russia.
GS has increased its Brent forecast by $5/bbl to $66/bbl, and by $6 for WTI crude to $63/bbl, slightly lower than current levels of $68.34/bbl and 66.24/bbl for Brent and WTI crude, respectively.
However, the Wall Street bank has maintained its 2026 price forecast at $56/bbl for Brent and $52 for WTI, due to “an offset between a boost from higher long-dated prices and a hit from a wider 1.7M bbl/day surplus.’’ Previously, GS had forecast a 1.5M bbl/day surplus for the coming year.
Further, Goldman sees a stronger oil price rebound beyond 2026 due to reduced spare capacity.
EU natural gas inventories have climbed at faster-than-average clip in recent times. According to Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE) data, Europe’s gas inventories stood at 73.10 billion cubic metres (bcm) on 13 July, good for a 2.31 bcm w/w increase.
Still, the injection rate is not enough to completely fill the continent’s gas stores, with the current clip on track to take inventories to about 97.9 bcm, or 84.3% of storage capacity, at the end of the injection season.
Europe’s gas demand remains fairly lacklustre despite extremely high temperatures across much of the continent in recent weeks.
According to estimates by StanChart, EU gas demand for the first 14 days of July averaged 583 million cubic meters/day, nearly 3% lower from a year ago but a 10% improvement from the June lows.
However, StanChart is bullish on natural gas prices, saying the market is likely underestimating the likelihood of more Russian gas being taken off the markets.
Back in April, U.S. senators Lindsey Graham (Republican) and Richard Blumenthal (Democrat), introduced “Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025”, with the legislation enjoying broad bipartisan support (85 co-sponsors in the Senate out of 100 senators).
In a joint statement on 14 July, the two senators noted that President Trump’s decision to implement 100% secondary tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil and gas if a peace agreement is not reached within 50 days but pledged that they will continue to work on “bipartisan Russia sanctions legislation that would implement up to 500 percent tariffs on countries that buy Russian oil and gas”.
StanChart has predicted that the Trump administration is unlikely to take actions that risk driving oil prices higher. However, Russian gas remains in the crosshairs, with U.S. LNG likely to see a surge in demand if Russian gas exports are curtailed.
StanChart estimates that the EU’s net imports of Russian pipeline gas averaged 79.8 million cubic metres per day (mcm/d) in the first 14 days of July, with all non-transit flows into the EU coming into Bulgaria through the Turkstream pipeline, with Hungary and Slovakia also receiving Turkstream gas.
There was also a flow of about 65 mcm/d of Russian LNG in the first half of July, with Russia providing 18.6% of the EU’s net imports. StanChart has predicted that we could see a strong rally in natural gas prices if Washington slaps Moscow with fresh gas sanctions.
By: Alex Kimani