Writing
From the practice.
Evidence-led notes on the decisions that outlast the cycle.
The archive
2026
Impact
More money will not fix the host community trusts
A House committee has resolved to seek an amendment doubling the host community levy from three percent to six. No bill has been drafted yet. The five-year evidence says the constraint was never the size of the fund, but who controls it, and whether anyone can see where it goes.
Social Risk
Pricing lost consent into the capital plan
Community opposition is filed under reputation and priced at zero. On real projects it shows up as delay, and delay is the most expensive line in the model. Here is how to move social risk out of the press office and into the capital plan.
Security
Securing the asset without losing the community
Physical security and social licence are usually run as opposites: guards and gates on one side, engagement on the other. On a pipeline they are the same problem. Get the sequence wrong and the security itself becomes the risk.
Impact
From spend to social ROI: measuring impact that survives an audit
Community spend is counted in naira disbursed and photos taken. Auditors, lenders and communities are all now asking a harder question: what changed, and how do you know? Here is how to build impact measurement that holds up under scrutiny.
Capital
Blended finance in West Africa: lessons from five transactions
Capital is rarely the binding constraint in West African infrastructure. Bankability and risk allocation are. Five real transactions show how concessional money, used well, can unlock the commercial capital that does the heavy lifting.
ESG
Beyond the disclosure: what Nigerian boards actually need to govern climate
Reporting standards are arriving. They are necessary, and they are not the same as governance. Here is what a Nigerian board has to put in place to actually steer climate, not just describe it.
Public Sector
Designing programmes that survive an election cycle
In African public reform, the hardest part is not launching a programme. It is making sure the programme is still alive after the people who launched it have left. That is a design problem, and it can be solved on purpose.