Are we going viral?
Your right to vote in 2027 is already under threat. Also, Nigerians in South Africa are not eager to come home. This is your last chance to get a PVC, and another virus is on the loose
Good morning, Big Brains. I’ve had an insane week with more downs than ups. But my test results came out this week, and I aced it, and that really made my week so much better. Also, please fill out this form. It’s so we can continue to deliver high-quality, enjoyable content in this newsletter. I promise it won’t take your time.
- Orame
Word count: 2,301 words
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In the madhouse that is Nigeria, many things go down within the week, and it can be difficult to grasp them all. This edition of The Big Daily newsletter cuts through the noise and sifts through the debris to bring you the four biggest news stories that shaped the week.
Let’s get into this week’s Big-4:
Insecurity might kill the 2027 elections
Nigerians in South Africa are not keen on coming home
Voter’s card registration has started again
Look out for Hantavirus
Insecurity might kill the 2027 elections
There’s something very Nigerian about hearing that insecurity might affect elections in 2027 and reacting with, “Well, of course.” We’ve gotten so used to government failures repeating themselves that they barely shock anyone anymore. Now that the INEC chairman is already warning that insecurity could threaten the next election, it’s hard not to wonder if we’re sleepwalking into another avoidable mess.
On Wednesday, April 6, 2026, Joash Amupitan visited the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Tunji Disu, in Abuja to discuss the 2027 elections. During the meeting, Amupitan warned that the high insecurity in the country could severely impact the elections. “The scale of insecurity across the various parts of Nigeria presents a threat to the conduct of the fair election,” he said, calling for a full security risk analysis, early identification of flashpoints, and intelligence-led deployment across the country.
The INEC Chairman also shared his concerns about the possible disenfranchisement of thousands of Nigerians living in Internal Displaced Persons (IDP) camps, stating that his commission will do everything in its power to ensure that’s not the case.
The current concern raised by Amupitan is not a new alarm. Ahead of the 2023 elections, then-National Commissioner of INEC, Festus Okoye, raised similar alarm about how violence, banditry, and the displacement of millions of Nigerians threatened the credibility of the polls.
At the time, INEC developed a framework for IDP voting ahead of the 2023 elections. After the elections came, IDP camp coordinators across Benue, Kaduna, and Cross River told Punch that INEC officials didn’t show up to register citizens or resolve issues with their voter cards. The framework existed on paper but lacked a proper follow-through process.
Now, it’s almost time for another election, and we’re stuck having the same conversations. Insecurity has not been addressed; instead, it has worsened.
Nigeria had an estimated 2.7 million internally displaced persons ahead of 2023, according to a Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) analysis, and that number currently sits at 3.8 million according to data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). The Borno State hostage crisis is ongoing, with more and more people being abducted every day. INEC is starting the 2027 election cycle with the same problems, the same worries, and the same requests.
The people most likely to be disenfranchised in 2027 are the same people the government has already failed the most. Many communities have been shattered and displaced by insecurity. They already cannot go home, and now the government is signalling that they may not get to vote either. Losing your community to insecurity is one injury, but losing your vote because of the same insecurity is an even more painful injury.
What the INEC and the federal government owe displaced Nigerians is simple. The commission must ensure the implementation of a detailed, enforceable IDP voting plan, not another framework document that gathers dust.
The federal government, on its part, must, for once, treat insecurity as an emergency that affects democratic participation, not just a security problem to be managed.
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Nigerians in South Africa are not keen on coming home
The Nigerian government is handling the ongoing crisis in South Africa like a “xenophobia is bad and we are handling it” situation, but we believe it’s a lot deeper than that. Nigerians are being attacked in a foreign country, and as of May 3, only 130 people want to come home.
Anti-foreigner protests erupted across South Africa on April 29, targeting immigrants in Pretoria, Johannesburg, Durban, and KwaZulu-Natal. On Sunday, April 3, 2026, Nigeria’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Bianca Odumegwu-Ojukwu, announced that voluntary repatriation flights would be arranged for Nigerians who wished to return home, and 130 Nigerians had registered with the Nigerian mission.
That number, 130 out of 200,000, is where the story becomes something else. It says that Nigerians who should be ordinarily eager to flee impending death in a xenophobic country would much rather brave the odds than come home. The knee-jerk reaction we expect from Nigerians in South Africa is desperation to come home, but it’s not hard to see why they’re not thrilled about it. Recent data from the World Bank shows that 63% of Nigerians live below the poverty line. Nigeria is also N ranked 115th out of 123 countries in the 2025 Global Hunger Index. That same year, the World Food Programme (WFP) revealed that over 33 million Nigerians faced acute food insecurity.
Every now and again, we hear of people risking their lives to cross the Sahara and the Mediterranean in search of a better life. The Nigerians living in South Africa are no different. They decided to brave the risks in South Africa because staying in Nigeria might mean a slower, more severe version of the same danger faced there.
Nigerians deserve a country that doesn't feel like a prison they had to pay to escape. Until the government addresses the cost of living and the terror in our streets, "voluntary repatriation" will remain a joke that nobody is laughing at.
This is your last chance to get a voter’s card
Every election cycle in Nigeria follows a predictable emotional arc. Nigerians spend months on Twitter describing the government in terms that would make your village pastor faint. They share threads, attend protests, and demand accountability as loudly as they can. Then the election comes, and millions of them cannot vote because they never registered or collected their Permanent Voter’s Card (PVC).
On Tuesday, May 5, INEC announced the commencement of the third and final phase of its Continuous Voter Registration, which will run from May 11 to July 10, 2026.
The process is open to citizens who have turned 18, those who missed earlier phases, and registered voters seeking to transfer registration or replace lost or damaged PVCs. After July 10, the window closes.
In the 2023 presidential election, only 25 million of 93 million registered voters cast ballots. That is a 26.72% turnout, the lowest since the return to democracy in 1999. Of 93 million registered voters, over 6 million never even collected their PVCs before the election.
President Bola Tinubu won the elections with 8 million votes, meaning he became president with the backing of roughly 8.6% of Nigeria’s eligible adults. The full Citizen report has a deeper breakdown of how Nigerians voted in the last election, including what the numbers reveal about young people’s involvement in politics.
The pattern is exhausting. We spend months analysing why the Naira is falling and why the electricity supply is poor, but we let a tiny minority of voters decide our future.
Politicians thrive on your apathy. They want you to believe that “your vote doesn’t count” because if you don’t show up, the system works in their favour, not yours.
If you want a different outcome in 2027, the work starts on May 11. You cannot “vibes and insha’Allah” your way out of bad governance. Getting your PVC is the only way to ensure that politicians actually have to work for their seats, rather than just inheriting them.
The voter registration portal is cvr.inecnigeria.org. INEC offices are open nationwide on weekdays. If you have turned 18, this is your chance. If your PVC is lost or damaged, this is your chance. If you want to transfer your registration to your actual address, this is your chance.
The politicians who benefit from low turnout are counting on you to say, “They’ll rig it jare.” Don’t. The only reason why any politician would want to rig an election is that they know when done right, it’s a powerful tool. Now is your time to use this tool.
Hantavirus is in the news, but why?
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, rats have come to show us shege, and no, they’re not eating anybody’s documents (yet👀). The World Health Organisation (WHO) is flagging a Hantavirus cluster linked to international travel. While it hasn’t been recorded in Nigeria yet, the WHO has told all countries to be “super vigilant.” Given how we handled the early days of COVID-19, “vigilant” usually means “waiting until it hits Lagos before acting”
So, what is it? Hantavirus is a respiratory disease spread primarily by rodents, specifically through contact with their urine, droppings, or saliva. The strain linked to this cruise ship cluster is the Andes virus, which is primarily found in South America. The Andes virus is unusual among hantaviruses because it is limited to human-to-human transmission, primarily through prolonged close contact. It causes Hantavirus Pulmonary Syndrome (HPS), which can progress rapidly to pneumonia and acute respiratory distress. In the Americas, the case fatality rate for HPS can reach up to 50%.
The early symptoms look like a standard Nigerian “malaria”: fever, fatigue, and muscle aches. Incubation typically lasts one to six weeks, but four to ten days later, the lungs fill with fluid, and you start gasping for air. There is no specific treatment or vaccine. It’s basically a biological lottery you don’t want to enter.
The WHO currently assesses the global risk as low. The Africa Centre for Disease Control (CDC) is closely monitoring the situation. This suggests that vigilance from travellers who were in southern South America in recent months is warranted.
As is no surprise to anyone, Nigeria is a rodent paradise. From our open markets to poor waste management in major cities, we are literally inviting these carriers to dinner. If this virus hits a densely populated area like Mushin or Onitsha, the “vigilance” of the Ministry of Health won’t be enough to stop the spread.
Hand hygiene and rodent control are the only shields we have. Standard precautions, such as handwashing and environmental cleaning, are non-negotiable. Stop dry-sweeping dust where rats might have been; that’s how the virus becomes airborne, and you breathe it in.
Another health crisis is the last thing our economy needs. If we can’t manage Lassa Fever, which we’ve had for years, how are we going to handle a “new” Hantavirus? God abeg.
Nigerians deserve a functional public health system that preempts outbreaks instead of just counting bodies. Until then, keep your house rat-free and your hands clean. Your life depends on it more than it depends on the government’s “preparedness.”
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