General News
Guinness, Concern Universal Unveil Water, Sanitation Projects
Guinness Nigeria Plc, an integral part of Diageo, has partnered with Concern Universal to pioneer a sustainable method of integrating rural sanitation and hygiene promotion with access to safe water.
This novel approach which strengthens the 10 year-old Diageo Water of Life project is being implemented by Concern Universal in 10 communities across three local government areas of Cross River State.
Inadequate access to safe water and sanitation, coupled with poor hygiene practices, causes the spread of deadly, yet easily preventable, diseases such as diarrhoea, cholera, and typhoid.
In Nigeria, where one quarter of the population practice open defecation, over 150,000 children under the age of five die each year from diarrhoea alone. Together, improvements in water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) are responsible for preventing up to 90% of diarrhoeal diseases.
Sesan Sobowale, corporate relations director, Guinness Nigeria Plc said “Guinness Nigeria recognizes that millions of people still do not have access to clean and safe water. 1 in 5 people around the world cannot access safe drinking water; and in Nigeria, 63 million people do not have access to clean water. This is why Guinness Nigeria and the Diageo Foundation teamed up with Concern Universal to provide clean water for rural communities in Cross River State. Our partnership leverages our collective strengths to help beneficiary communities improve their water, sanitation, and hygiene, and ultimately, their health.”
Guinness Nigeria’s partnership with Concern Universal supports the Rural Sanitation and Hygiene Promotion in Nigeria (RUSHPIN) programme by providing access to safe water in villages that have achieved open defecation free status in Cross River State.
The partnership’s key innovation is its careful sequencing of water points with RUSHPIN’s community-led, behaviour change approach.
It ensures that the provision of water points complements, rather than undermines, the critical behavior change process, hand-pump boreholes are only provided once communities sustainably end open defecation.
New water points are then maintained by inclusive ‘Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Committees’, each with 50% female membership, who are provided a toolbox, set of spare parts, and intensive hands-on training in borehole repair in the case of future breakdowns.
Committee members are also facilitated to develop their own water management plans, including financing future repairs and conserving water during drier seasons.
Tim Kellow, Concern Universal’s Country Director, explained how “this approach, which carefully sequences demand-led sanitation & hygiene behaviour change with participatory water management, is creating a model for the WASH sector,in Nigeria and beyond, to ensure that the introduction of water points works in tandem with sanitation and hygiene promotion to prevent killer diseases, such as diarrhoea”.
Osita Abana, Sustainable Development Manager, Guinness Nigeria, remarked on the project’s impact in Cross River State: “During my visit to beneficiary communities, I was inspired to see firsthand, the positive impact the Guinness/Concern Universal partnership is already making. Families who used to fetch water from streams now have easy access to clean water. Communities have also adopted proper hygiene habits that will limit the spread of preventable diseases like diarrhea and cholera.”
Through the partnership’s pilot project, Guinness Nigeria and Concern Universal helped 6,000 people in ten communities to access safe drinking water.
In addition, 120 community members have been trained in basic borehole maintenance and water resource management.
Guinness Nigeria Plc was established in 1950, making it one of the oldest companies in Nigeria. Listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange in 1965, and with a shareholder base of over 75,000 shareholders, it is also one of the foremost quoted companies in Nigeria.
The company built its first brewery in Ikeja in 1962, and currently has facilities in Ogba, Benin City and Aba.
Diageo Plc is a global leader in beverage alcohol with an outstanding collection of brands across spirits, beer and wine categories.
These brands include Johnnie Walker, Crown Royal, JεB, Buchanan’s and Windsor whiskies, Smirnoff, Cîroc and Ketel One vodkas, Captain Morgan, Baileys, Don Julio, Tanqueray and Guinness.
Diageo is a global company, and our products are sold in more than 180 countries around the world.
Also, Concern Universal, an international Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) with 14 years of experience in Nigeria, is the executing agency of the Rural Sanitation and Hygiene Promotion in Nigeria (RUSHPIN) programme.
RUSHPIN is a five-year initiative of the United Nation’s Global Sanitation Fund and the Nigerian government which uses the empowering ‘Community-led Total Sanitation’ approach to trigger community-wide demand for improved sanitation and hygiene without the use of external subsidies.
Through the programme, over 2 million rural people in Cross River and Benue states are taking control of their own health by ending open defecation and washing their hands with soap at critical times.
Dangote Petroleum Refinery is reportedly nearing completion of a $2.5 billion private placement that values the company at about $40 billion ahead of its planned public listing.
Private placement is the direct sale of company shares or bonds to pre-selected investors instead of the general public and it is used to raise money quickly while avoiding strict public reporting rules.
People familiar with the transaction said investors acquired as much as 6 per cent of the refinery, according to a BusinessDay report.
The reported terms would value the business at approximately $40 billion.
Neither Dangote Group nor the refinery has publicly announced the final amount raised, the identities of most subscribers or the precise percentage sold.
The figures should therefore be treated as transaction details supplied by unnamed sources rather than confirmed company disclosures.
The reported $2.5 billion total is nevertheless significant as it indicates strong demand for exposure to a privately controlled refinery that has rapidly become central to Nigeria’s fuel supply and an increasingly important exporter of petroleum products.
The placement was said to have attracted more demand than the available shares, allowing the company to secure substantially more than the amount initially associated with the fundraising exercise.
Femi Otedola, chairman, First HoldCo, is the only major participant publicly identified in the report.
He reportedly committed $100 million to the transaction and sold his investment in Geregu Power Plc to finance the acquisition.
Nigeria’s pension industry was also reportedly cleared to participate.
Access to more than $17 billion in retirement assets would broaden the refinery’s potential investor base beyond wealthy individuals and conventional institutional buyers.
Participation by Pension Fund Administrators would, however, require careful attention to valuation, liquidity and portfolio-concentration limits.
Retirement funds must balance the attraction of a large Nigerian industrial asset against their responsibility to protect contributors’ savings.
The implied $40 billion valuation represents investor expectations about the refinery’s future earnings rather than only the physical cost of constructing the facility.
Its ability to process 650,000 barrels of crude daily gives it a central role in supplying Nigeria and other markets, but its commercial performance remains connected to crude availability, product prices, exchange rates and regulation.
The refinery has struggled to obtain all the Nigerian crude it requires under the government’s naira-for-crude arrangement.
It has consequently purchased some feedstock internationally and recently moved local petroleum-product pricing into dollars to align sales revenue more closely with its foreign-currency expenses.
Those constraints will be important during any public offering.
Prospective shareholders will want greater clarity on crude-supply contracts, debt, operating margins, export revenue and the company’s relationship with Nigerian regulators.
It is also unclear whether the private placement involved newly issued shares, a sale by existing owners or a combination of both.
That distinction determines whether the reported $2.5 billion becomes fresh capital for the refinery or proceeds received by selling shareholders.
The transaction could provide a useful price reference for the planned initial public offering.
Federal government will next month launch Nigeria’s first national organized crime strategy to strengthen the country’s response to terrorism, cybercrime, human and drug trafficking, kidnapping, illicit financial flows, and other forms of organized crime.
Major General Adamu Laka, national coordinator of the National Counter Terrorism Centre under the Office of the National Security Adviser, disclosed this in Abuja during the validation of the strategy document.
He said the strategy provides a coordinated national framework for tackling organized crime through improved intelligence sharing, stronger collaboration among security agencies, and closer cooperation with the criminal justice system, civil society organizations, and international partners.
Major General Laka explained that the document was developed through a partnership involving the Federal Government, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the United States Government, and other stakeholders.
Speaking at the event, Cheikh Toure, UNODC representative, said the strategy would strengthen Nigeria’s capacity to combat transnational crimes, including drug trafficking, cybercrime, human trafficking, kidnapping, and illicit financial flows.
Also speaking, Douglas Grane, acting director of the United States Department of State’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, reaffirmed the U.S. government’s support for Nigeria’s efforts to tackle organized crime through stronger inter-agency and international cooperation.
Representatives of the National Institute for Strategic Studies, the Nigeria Financial Intelligence Unit, and the National Cyber Security Centre also endorsed the initiative, describing it as a major step towards improving Nigeria’s fight against organized crime.
FATE Foundation, with funding from the Citi Foundation, has launched the Youth Entrepreneurship Incubation Programme to equip young people in Nigeria with financial literacy and entrepreneurship skills.
Delivered through free, safe, and accessible platforms, the programme supports the incubation and scaling of youth-led enterprises, enabling income generation and job creation.
In October 2025, FATE Foundation was selected as a recipient of Citi Foundation’s 2025 Global Innovation Challenge to Accelerate Youth Employability. Joining the cohort of 50 organisations globally, the Foundation will receive $500,000 over two years to advance its youth employability initiative.
“We are excited to be selected for Citi Foundation’s 2025 Global Innovation Challenge,” said Ayomide Akindolie-Igwe, Executive Director of FATE Foundation.
“This support enables us to equip young entrepreneurs in Nigeria with the financial literacy and skills needed to build and scale sustainable businesses.”
The programme addresses youth employability by tackling Africa’s growing jobs crisis. By 2030, the African continent will be home to 40% of the world’s youth, and with one in three under 35 already unemployed, this initiative will support Nigerian youth with a two-phase approach. It begins with financial literacy training before progressing to entrepreneurship development, incubation support, and access to tools needed to build viable, job-creating businesses.
“Through this innovative initiative, FATE Foundation is supporting low-income Nigerian youth to develop essential financial and entrepreneurial skills using accessible platforms.
“This support is not just helping individuals to succeed; it is building a solid foundation for sustainable enterprises that will drive job creation and contribute significantly to our nation’s economic vitality. This initiative is empowering and investing in the future of Nigeria, one youth at a time,” said Nneka Enwereji, MD/CEO Citibank Nigeria Limited.
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