The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that the COVID-19 pandemic reversed a "decade of health gains," causing a sharp 1.8-year decline in global life expectancy between 2019 and 2021—the largest drop in decades. While the world grapples with recovery, Nigeria faces an even grimmer reality, with its life expectancy stagnating at 54.6 years, far below the global average of 73.3 years.

Nigeria’s Deepening Health Crisis Amid Economic Hardship

With inflation soaring, unemployment rising, and millions struggling to afford basic necessities, Nigeria’s already weak health system risks further deterioration. The WHO report highlights that healthy life expectancy—a measure of years lived in good health—declined globally by six weeks due to rising mental health disorders, including anxiety and depression. In Nigeria, where economic stress is intensifying, mental health services remain severely underfunded, leaving many without support.

Maternal and Child Deaths Could Rise

The report also reveals stalled progress in reducing maternal and child mortality, a critical concern for Nigeria, which already has one of the highest maternal death rates globally. WHO attributes this stagnation to chronic underfunding of primary healthcare, shortages of skilled workers, and gaps in essential services like immunization and safe childbirth. Without urgent intervention, Nigeria could see more preventable deaths, worsening an already dire situation.

Non-Communicable Diseases and Poverty: A Deadly Mix

Non-communicable diseases (NCDs)—such as diabetes, heart disease, and stroke—are now the leading cause of premature death worldwide. In Nigeria, where malnutrition and poor healthcare access persist, these diseases are becoming deadlier. The economic crisis means fewer Nigerians can afford healthy diets, medication, or preventive care, accelerating health declines.

Health Worker Shortage

WHO projects a global shortfall of 11.1 million health workers by 2030, with Africa facing the most severe gaps. Nigeria’s healthcare system, already strained by brain drain and poor funding, may collapse further, leaving millions without care.

A Call for Action Before It’s Too Late

With infectious diseases like malaria resurging and childhood vaccination rates lagging, Nigeria cannot afford further setbacks. Yet, as international aid dwindles and domestic health budgets remain inadequate, the country risks losing more ground in life expectancy and overall health.

At least 30 people were killed in separate attacks by suspected armed men in Kebbi and Benue states over the weekend, highlighting the growing insecurity in rural communities across Nigeria.

In Kebbi State, suspected gunmen launched a deadly assault on the Waje community in Danko Wasagu Local Government Area on Saturday, killing 15 farmers and injuring three others. According to the local government chairman, Hussaini Bena, the attack has left residents shaken and in urgent need of better security.

Deputy Governor Umar Tafida, representing Governor Nasir Idris, visited the district head of Waje, Bala Danbaba, to offer condolences and deliver financial assistance to families affected by the violence. Tafida described the gesture as a modest but vital effort to support the bereaved and injured. Danbaba expressed gratitude for the state government’s “timely and impactful” support, while also highlighting the community’s vulnerability due to its proximity to the volatile borders of Niger, Zamfara, and Sokoto states.

Meanwhile, in Benue State, another 15 lives were lost in an ambush on traders returning from Oweto market in Agatu Local Government Area. The attack, which occurred Saturday evening near Ogwumogbo and Okpo’okpolo, also left several others wounded. Former Agatu LGA vice chairman, John Ikwulono, confirmed the incident and said five victims were found dead near a stream called Abekoko, including one identified as Ali from Ogwumogbo.

Local authorities, including Agatu LGA chairman Melvin James, were attending the victims’ burial on Sunday when confirmation of the incident came through his aide. While the aide blamed armed herders for the killings, the Benue State Chairman of Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), Mohammed Risku, said he was in a meeting and could not comment. MACBAN Secretary, Ibrahim Galma, stated he was unaware of any such incident at the time.

The police in Benue, through spokesperson CSP Catherine Anene, said no official report had been received regarding the attack.

These latest killings add to a grim tally of violence in Benue, where at least 174 people have been killed in various communities between April 1 and May 17. The most severely affected areas include Gwer East, Guma, Otukpo, Kwande, Apa, and particularly the Sankera axis—comprising Katsina-Ala, Logo, and Ukum—which alone recorded 83 deaths over a four-day period in April.

As rural communities across northern and central Nigeria continue to face relentless attacks, calls for enhanced security and swift justice grow louder from both local leaders and bereaved families.

Israel says it will let food into Gaza after announcing new ground assault

Israel will ease its blockade and let limited amounts of food into Gaza, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office said on Sunday, after the military announced it had begun "extensive ground operations" in the northern and southern parts of the enclave.

Facing mounting pressure over an aid blockade it imposed in March and the risk of famine, Israel has stepped up its campaign in Gaza, where Palestinian health officials said hundreds have been killed in attacks in the past week, including 130 overnight.

"At the recommendation of the IDF (Israel Defense Forces), and out of the operational need to enable the expansion of intense fighting to defeat Hamas, Israel will allow a basic amount of food for the population to ensure that a hunger crisis does not develop in the Gaza Strip," Netanyahu's office said.

Eri Kaneko, a spokesperson for U.N. aid chief Tom Fletcher confirmed the agency had been approached by Israeli authorities to "resume limited aid delivery," adding that discussions are ongoing about the logistics "given the conditions on the ground."

Israel made its announcement after sources on both sides said there had been no progress in a new round of indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Qatar.

Netanyahu said the talks included discussions on a truce and hostage deal as well as a proposal to end the war in return for the exile of Hamas militants and the demilitarisation of the enclave - terms Hamas has previously rejected.

The Israeli military suggested in a later statement that it could still scale down operations to help reach a deal in Doha. Military chief Eyal Zamir told troops in Gaza that the army would provide the country's leaders with the flexibility they need to reach a hostage deal, according to the statement.

Israel's military said it had conducted a preliminary wave of strikes on more than 670 Hamas targets in Gaza over the past week to support "Gideon's Chariots", its new ground operation aimed at achieving "operational control" in parts of the enclave. It said it killed dozens of Hamas fighters.

Gaza's Health Ministry said in the week to Sunday alone, at least 464 Palestinians were killed.

"Complete families were wiped off the civil registration record by (overnight) Israeli bombardment," Khalil Al-Deqran, Gaza health ministry spokesperson, told Reuters by phone.

The Israeli campaign has devastated Gaza, pushing nearly all of its two million residents from their homes and killing more than 53,000 people, many of them civilians, according to Gaza health authorities.

Israel has blocked the entry of medical, food and fuel supplies into Gaza since the start of March to try to pressure Hamas into freeing its hostages and has approved plans that could involve seizing the entire Gaza Strip and controlling aid.

International experts have warned of looming famine.

QATAR TALKS

Asked about the Qatar talks, a Hamas official told Reuters: "Israel's position remains unchanged, they want to release the prisoners (hostages) without a commitment to end the war."

Hamas was still proposing to release all of its Israeli hostages in return for an end to the war, the pull-out of Israeli troops, an end to a blockade on aid for Gaza, and the release of Palestinian prisoners, the Hamas official said.

A senior Israeli official said there had been no progress in the talks so far.

Israel's declared goal in Gaza is the elimination of the military and governmental capabilities of Hamas, which attacked Israeli communities on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and seizing 251 hostages.

In Israel, Einav Zangauker, mother of hostage Matan Zangauker, said Netanyahu was refusing to end the war in exchange for the hostages for political reasons.

"The Israeli government still insists on only partial deals. They are deliberately tormenting us. Bring our children back already! All 58 of them," Zangauker said in a social media post.

TENTS ABLAZE

One of Israel's overnight strikes hit a tent encampment housing displaced families in Khan Younis in southern Gaza, killing women and children, wounding dozens and setting tents ablaze, medics said.

Later on Sunday, Gaza's health ministry said the Indonesian Hospital, one of the largest partially functioning medical facilities in northern Gaza, had ceased work because of Israeli fire.

Israel's military said its troops were targeting "terrorist infrastructure sites" in northern Gaza, including in the area adjacent to the Indonesian hospital.

Hamas neither confirmed nor denied reports on Sunday in Arab and Israeli media that its leader, Mohammed Sinwar, was killed in last week's airstrikes on a tunnel below another hospital further south in Gaza.

Gaza's healthcare system is barely operational and the blockade on aid has compounded its difficulties. Israel blames Hamas for stealing aid, which Hamas denies.

"Hospitals are overwhelmed with a growing number of casualties, many are children," said Al-Deqran, the health ministry spokesperson.

The Palestinian Civil Emergency Service said 75% of its ambulances could not run because of fuel shortages. It warned that within 72 hours, all vehicles may stop.

Reuters

In March 2006, Uganda’s Supreme Court convened to begin adjudication of the disputes over the presidential election that occurred the previous month in the country. Voting took place on 23 February. Two days later, on 25 February, the Electoral Commission announced the results, giving the incumbent, Yoweri Museveni, 59.28% of the valid votes cast. In second place, with an award of 37.36% of the votes, the commission announced Kiiza Besigye, a medical doctor whose military career began as part of the bush war that brought Museveni to power 20 years earlier in 1986.

In his petition against the announced result, Besigye argued that the Electoral Commission did not validly declare the results in accordance with the Constitution and the Presidential Elections Act; and that the election was conducted in contravention of the provisions of both. His evidence was compelling.

Yet, the impression that the petition process was a ritual performance with a predetermined outcome pervaded the process. Leading the legal team for the Electoral Commission of Uganda who were defendants in the petition was Lucian Tibaruha, Solicitor-General of Uganda. In reality, he also led the lawyers for the president, also a defendant alongside the Electoral Commission. Handling election petitions for a party political candidate was not supposed to be part of Lucian’s job, but there he was. 

Presiding was Benjamin Josses Odoki, Chief Justice of Uganda since 2001 and the author of the 1995 Constitution that incrementally made Museveni a life president. Idi Amin, Uganda’s infamous military dictator, elevated Odoki to the bench as a 35-year-old in 1978. Amin’s nemesis, Museveni, elevated him to the Supreme Court eight years later and made him Chief Justice in 2001.

Announcing its reasoned judgment in January 2007, the court found that there had been non-compliance with the Constitution of Uganda and the applicable laws in the form of “disenfranchisement of voters by deleting their names from the voters register or denying them the right to vote” as well as “in the counting and tallying of results.” 

The court equally found as a fact that the “principle of free and fair elections was compromised by bribery and intimidation or violence in some areas of the country” and also that “the principles of equal suffrage, transparency of the vote, and secrecy of the ballot were undermined by multiple voting, and vote stuffing in some areas.” 

Despite these findings, Chief Justice Odoki and his court ruled by a majority of four votes to three of Justices of the Supreme Court of Uganda to uphold the election and grant President Museveni another five years in power. Two years after this decision, in 2009, when the Chief Justice’s son, Phillip Odoki, wedded, Museveni’s son, General Muhoozi Kainerugaba, was the best man.

In 2010, it emerged that Chief Justice Odoki never harboured any doubts about the outcome. Questioned about the role of judges in deciding elections in Africa, Odoki, “smiled when commenting that to nullify a presidential election would be suicidal.” He lived to see his peers in Kenyaand Malawi do just that in 2017 and 2020, respectively. It proved not to be suicidal.

According to former law teacher, Olu Adediran, the role of judges in these kinds of cases is in reality “a compromise between law and political expediency.” Jude Murison is more direct in calling it “judicial politics.” Judges are not instruments of change or revolution, and when they are called upon to adjudicate between sides in a political dispute, they are more often than not likely to treat that not as an opportunity to change political paymasters, except when the bell has already tolled undisputedly for an incumbent. 

Politicians are supposed to sell themselves to the people through their programmes and through campaigns in a contest of both ideas and vision. In return, the people, through their votes, offer endorsement to the politicians and programmes that they believe best advance their interests. An electoral commission is a referee supposedly engaged and maintained at the public expense to administer this contest. 

This is where things begin to break down. Although engaged in the name of the people, every electoral commission is appointed by people in power who never wish to relinquish it. When a dispute emerges as to the kind of job done by the electoral commission, it ends up before judges. However, the same people who appoint the electoral commission also usually appoint the most senior judges to office. In the maelstrom of party political competition, guardrails break down as politicians struggle to casualise the popular electorate in order to prosper a judicial selectorate.  

The more election disputes end up in court, the more it becomes evident to politicians that it is easier to make deals with the judges. The people are and can be unpredictable, unlike most judges. Increasingly, therefore, politicians seek to judicialise the site of decision-making on elections, relocating that from the polling booth to the courtroom. 

If a politician can get their spouse appointed to become a judge, they can even make the site of decision-making in elections more intimate, relocating it from the courtroom to the bedroom. 

Instead of the usual soapbox, increasingly elections in many countries can be decided by good old pillow-talk. Former federal legislator, Adamu Bulkachuwa, whose wife, Zainab, headed Nigeria’s Court of Appeal for six years until 2020, published the manual on this model of electoral ascendancy in his parliamentary valedictory remarks as a senator in June 2023.

This is why the judicialisation of politics in Africa increasingly represents a huge risk to the popular will as the basis of government. First, it vitiates the right to democratic participation and suppresses the popular will as the foundation for democratic legitimacy. Second, it enables the courts to deprive the people of their democratic rights, accomplishing that under the alluring pretence of rule of law.

Third, it provides perverse incentives for politicians to capture the courts, making the judiciary in many African countries a battleground for the pre-determination of election outcomes. Fourth, it has the capacity to alter the character of the judiciary from an independent institution to a plaything of political insiders.

This trend in consigning elections to the care of a judicial selectorate around Africa now endangers judges and their independence. In Malawi, in 2020, the president attempted to remove the Chief Justice in order to secure a Supreme Court panel more solicitous of his interests in the lead-up to a presidential re-run, following a rigged electoral contest that had been struck down by the courts. 

The following year, in September 2021, the ruling party in Zimbabwe pressured the Constitutional Court to overrule an earlier decision of the High Court that blocked an extension of the tenure of the Chief Justice after he had reached the official retirement age. This allowed the Chief Justice to still serve, but on a contract that made him more subject to presidential whim. Ahead of contentious national elections two years later, the same president decided to advance $400,000 to all serving judges in Zimbabwe in “housing loan” with no repayment obligations. One of the beneficiaries was the chair of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (ZEC), herself a serving judge. Unsurprisingly, she announced her benefactor, the incumbent president, as the winner in the ensuing election. 

Even worse, this trend now also endangers entire countries, if not indeed regions. This was evident in April 2020, when Mali’s Constitutional Court overturned the results of 31 parliamentary seats won by the opposition. Its decision to hand these seats over to the ruling party sparked an uprising that led first to the dissolution of the Constitutional Court, and later the overthrow of the government in a military coup. 

Mali’s twin crises of governmental legitimacy and state fragmentation are a tragic reminder of the dangers of judicial overreach in election adjudication. But the crisis in Mali has also become a regional crisis for West Africa. To adapt an expression familiar to new-age Pentecostals in West Africa: what judges cannot do does not exist. 

** A lawyer and a teacher, Odinkalu can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. 

Sudhir Chaturvedi

When did the word "sales" become taboo? Regardless of whether you're offering a product or service, the essence of every business is rooted in effective sales. Yet, we often shy away from the term, opting for titles like business development lead, client advisor, or account manager. Why does the word "salesperson" evoke such discomfort?

Growth Solves All Problems

In business, growth creates a virtuous cycle. Sales drive initial growth, creating headroom for more investments. These additional investments can then fuel expansion into new markets or innovations, sparking further growth. Success begets success, making the company more attractive not only to clients but also to top talent seeking dynamic environments. At the heart of this growth is a high-performing sales organization.

Conversely, without effective sales-driven growth, companies risk entering a vicious cycle. Lacking growth, organizations cut back investments, shrink resources, and ultimately stagnate. This stagnation then deters both clients and talent, further deepening the downturn.

To build and sustain this kind of momentum, organizations must rethink assumptions about who salespeople are and what truly drives them.

Myth 1: Salespeople Are Only Motivated By Money

One of the most common misconceptions about sales is that it’s all about the money. Yes, compensation matters, but it’s not what truly drives the top performers.

Effective salespeople are driven by something deeper: a relentless desire to win. The most effective among them are like high-performance athletes—motivated by competition, fueled by results and obsessed with success. You show me a good loser, I'll show you an unsuccessful salesperson.

For these individuals, winning isn’t just about closing a deal. It’s about earning recognition, influence, and the opportunity to lead. Of course, money follows—but it’s not the goal. It’s the by-product of performance.

Myth 2: Salespeople Work Best Alone (‘Lone Wolves’)

Another persistent stereotype about salespeople is that they’re lone wolves, who don’t like rules and processes, act independently and succeed only through personal grit and individual charm. The reality is that top-performing salespeople are anything but solo acts.

All good salespeople create a team around themselves, engaging with the best people in every area of the business to build the ecosystem to be successful.

They are intuitively systems thinkers who are process-driven, making sure that all facets of an opportunity are moving in the right direction. They aren’t concerned with being the smartest person in the room—their objective is to problem-solve through networking. They'll go deep within the client organization to learn more about and connect with the champions there.

Myth 3: Salespeople Aren’t Transparent Or Trustworthy

Salespeople often carry the stigma of being slick talkers, more interested in closing deals than stating the facts. It’s the age-old stereotype: oversell, overpromise and disappear. In reality, high-achieving salespeople know that trust is their greatest asset. You can’t build a long-term career on unfulfilled promises because sooner or later, clients see through it.

The best salespeople are actually brutally honest. They tell the client exactly what will happen (and what won’t), and involve the client in the process. They identify and solve pain points as they arise, and don’t try to win every point of contention. They conduct negotiations in an open, fair manner, and they have a longer-term perspective. In the best negotiations, everybody leaves a little unhappy.

Myth 4: Sales Is Merely About Selling Products/Services Immediately

It’s a common misconception that sales is only about pushing products/services and closing the deal quickly. However, the best salespeople aren’t focused on today’s transactions. They are focused on long-term transformation and where a client relationship can lead over time. Strong sales professionals focus on the value of the relationship beyond the current transaction.

With their vast network at their disposal, they have their finger on the pulse of current and upcoming trends. They’re able to help clients envision and realize a better future, and in doing so, secure a long-term pipeline of future sales.

Busting these myths is just the beginning. Once you move past outdated assumptions about what sales is, and who salespeople are, you start to see the deeper skillset that separates good from great.

There are two other factors that enable salespeople to excel.

Masters Of Communication

In sales, timing can be everything, and great salespeople understand that responsiveness is a competitive advantage. Simply being the first to respond to a client’s request can dramatically improve your odds of winning a deal. The first person to respond to an email tends to win disproportionately.

That doesn’t always mean delivering a full proposal immediately. Sometimes, it’s as simple as acknowledging the request with enthusiasm and clarity, something like "Got this, very excited, putting the team together." That kind of message signals hunger, commitment and momentum.

Sales leaders who master communication also know how to work smart. If a proposal is due on a Monday, they aim to submit it a few days earlier. This not only protects their team’s weekend but also gives them a key strategic edge. It’s likely to be the only proposal that is fully read. The highest performing salespeople use communication not just to inform, but to differentiate—and they act with speed.

AI-Driven Sales Leadership

We’re operating in a completely different environment now, and we need to be cautious that we’re not using 20-year-old selling techniques in an AI world. What worked decades ago doesn’t cut it anymore, not when speed, personalization and insight are the new currency.

The most effective sales professionals are embracing artificial intelligence as an accelerator to productivity. AI helps sales teams analyze client behavior, anticipate needs, summarize information and automate follow-ups—all at scale.

When done right, sales drives growth, builds trust and creates brighter futures. It’s time to reclaim the ‘S’ word as the driving force behind every thriving business. Let’s learn from the best and lead with pride.

Forbes