Reports & Publications

Community-Led Responses to Rural Insecurity Lessons from Jibia and Batsari, Katsina State Vol 2, Issue 12                                         2-8 September, 2025 Katsina State remains at the epicentre of Nigeria’s rural insecurity crisis, with nine frontline local government areas (LGAs)—Safana, Kankara, Danmusa, Musawa, Funtua, Matazu, Faskari, Batsari, and Jibia—long besieged by banditry. In 2024 alone, hundreds of […]

Download the PDF: Executive Summary Nigeria has not conducted a reliable national census since 2006. This has left policymakers reliant on outdated and contested data. The planned 2023 census was budgeted at N896 billion and designed as the first fully digital count. However, it was indefinitely postponed after N234 billion had already been spent. Traditional nationwide headcounts […]

August 20 2025 The Athena Election Observatory (AEO) notes with concern the scale of security deployments reportedly associated with the forthcoming supplementary election in Kaura Namoda North constituency, Zamfara State, scheduled for Thursday, August 21, 2025. According to unverified reports available to AEO, multiple Mobile Police (MOPOL) units, Special Intelligence Bureau (SIB) personnel from outside […]

Update on August 16 as at Sunday, 17 August – 2.38pmBy-Elections17 August 2025 Today, the Athena Election Observatory (AEO) releases the first edition of its Election Tracker, a new series of real-time updates and analyses that will serve as an authoritative voice during Nigeria’s elections. The Tracker will provide Nigerians and the international community with […]

Download the full edition:   Executive Summary Nigeria’s basic education system faces a deepening teacher shortage that threatens learning outcomes and long‑term national development. Only 915,000 teachers currently serve 31.8 million pupils, resulting in a teacher–pupil ratio of 1:35, well above the UNESCO benchmark of 1:25. Recruitment has stalled, with eighteen states failing to hire […]

Download the full edition: Executive Summary Nigeria’s democracy faces significant threat from the escalating trend of political defections, particularly the mass exodus of opposition figures to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC). This policy brief, From Political Pluralism to Party Predominance: Rethinking Defections in Nigeria’s Democracy, highlights how this anomaly undermines political pluralism, weakens institutions, and […]

Download the full edition: Introduction Despite years of policy dialogue and global frameworks, Nigerian women still face formidable hurdles in political inclusion, economic opportunity, and access to education. These gaps are not merely gender issues; they represent fundamental development failures. With women holding only 3.9% of seats in the House of Representatives and 3.1% in […]

Download the full edition: The 2023 general elections were meant to renew hope in Nigeria’s democracy. Instead, they deepened public doubt. What should have been a celebration of progress became a reminder of how fragile the system still is. With only 27% of registered voters turning out, the lowest since the return to civilian rule […]

Introduction  Infrastructure serves as the backbone of economic development, playing a pivotal role in the movement of goods and services across regions. In Nigeria, however, poor infrastructure remains a fundamental bottleneck in the supply chain, significantly driving up the cost of transporting goods. According to the World Bank transport costs in Nigeria account for as […]