The United States has signed a five-year agreement with Nigeria to strengthen its health system, with a strong emphasis on promoting Christian faith-based health care providers.

The Department of State, in collaboration with Congress, will commit nearly $2.1 billion to expand essential preventative and curative services for HIV, TB, malaria, polio, and maternal and child health.

Under the bilateral agreement signed at the weekend, the Nigerian government will increase its domestic health expenditures by nearly $3 billion during the five-year term.

The Memorandum of Understanding is the largest co-investment any country has made to date under the America First Global Health Strategy, said Thomas Pigott, State Department spokesperson.

The MOU was negotiated within the context of Nigeria’s reforms to protect Christian populations from violence and includes significant dedicated funding to support Christian healthcare facilities.

The investments were approved to complement the efforts of Nigeria’s 900 faith-based clinics and hospitals, currently serving millions of people, and strengthen the country’s health infrastructure.

The U.S. government stressed that the President and Secretary of State retain the right to pause or terminate any programs which fails to align with the national interest.

“The Trump Administration expects Nigeria to continue to make progress ensuring that it combats extremist religious violence against vulnerable Christian populations,” Pigott added.

The MOU was signed despite the U.S. designation of Nigeria as a Country of Particular Concern and its recent inclusion in the travel ban list, which President Donald Trump premised on terrorism and visa overstay rate.

The America First Global Health Strategy, released in September 2025, covers dozens of countries. It shifts the focus of U.S. health aid to self-reliance, data security, HIV, TB, malaria, and maternal and child health services.

By Tim Akano

Leo Stan Ekeh (LSE) is an extraordinary human being. He is extremely hardworking, hugely brave, and massively intelligent. He is a shrewd businessman but with a cathedral-size heart of butterfly

Leo Stan Ekeh

I’m a product of LSE’s generosity. But not only me, I am close enough to know. We are uncountable.

I was always with him after office hours in his office twenty years ago when he was constructing a church in his place of birth. He was so committed to details and beauty that when the church was roofed and he went for inspection and discovered some misalignment, he instructed the contractor to remove the roof and redo it, without minding the extra cost coming from his pocket.

There was this physically challenged fellow that LSE bought a car for, including a driver to make life easier for her.

During one of his birthday celebrations, he told me, Tim, I am not inviting my friends for any birthday party this year, all the money I would have used in buying expensive wine, I am donating everything to charity

LSE & I

He actually looked for me when I started New Horizons. He read my interview in the Vanguard news paper and asked his staff to look for me.

Prayer:
May each of us receive a telephone call before the end of 2025 that will change our life’s trajectory for good for ever in Jesus name, Amen.

I did.!

Our conversation on that fateful Friday went like this:

LSE: Tim, I read your interview in the newspaper. I would like us to meet.

Tim: You are our LEADER in the Technology ecosystem, Sir.
I can come to your house tomorrow Saturday morning for a breakfast.

LSE: Tim, that’s good, I will be expecting you by 8am tomorrow in my house.

By 8am the following day, I was in his massive, intimidating house.
As I entered the premises I said a simple prayer: The God Almighty who is blessing LSE, please Daddy God be kind to me also in my entrepreneurship journey Amen.

That day the breakfast meeting went well. He wanted to see the man behind the ambitious vision of transforming the ICT education in Nigeria.

He saw tomorrow!

1 LSE First Intervention: Two years after I started my company, New Horizons, I ran out of cash, even to pay salary was a prayer item every 30th of the month. That was May, 2007 it remained just 72 hours for Heaven to fall on my head, metaphorically speaking, that is!

I needed N10M to stop HEAVEN FROM CRASHING ON MY HEAD!
Banks in Nigeria are irrelevant to Start-ups, except and until you START WALKING, Banks will not come to your assistance in Nigeria.
It is O.Y.O (On Your Own) for every Start-up. If you don’t have God 100% on your side, don’t dabble into entrepreneurship in Nigeria!

This is why over 80% of Start-ups failed in Nigeria. In America, it is about 50%.

LSE was in Abuja on this particular Thursday. I called him and requested to see him. He told me to come.

Our conversation went like this:

LSE: Tim, I know you are keeping well.

Tim: My chairman, I am strong in faith, but in reality, heaven is hot on my side o! I need help, Chairman.

LSE: What is the matter, Tim?
Tim: I need N10M soft loan to keep afloat. It is urgent, critical and time- bound.

LSE ok, Tim, see me on Monday (that meeting took place on a Thursday).

Tim: My chairman, I am not exaggerating the criticality of my situation. by Monday it would be too late because Heaven would crash on my head in another 72 hours without the N10M! And it would be all over.

LSE adjusted himself, he breathed in , he looked me straight in the eyes. I wouldn’t know what LSE saw in my eyes that day.

But he stood up, went to the inner room and he came out with his cheque book. He gave me an Access Bank cheque for N10M, which I later refunded 3 months later without interest.

I survived, heaven didn’t fall that day, glory be to God and thanks to LSE.

LSE intervention 2:

This time we had grown, having survived the ABIKU YEARS (The first 5 years of Start-up are the ABIKU YEARS, years of premature, sudden death. If you survive the first 5 years, your chances of living to celebrate your 20 years in business are bright). We did, all gratitude to God.

I got a business that required huge capital to execute- very big money, which was beyond my capacity.

I went to my destiny- helper again. He is never tired of seeing me. He picks my calls on the first ring. But I don’t abuse the access too. No frivolous conversations. No irrelevant calls. Every call is about matter and mission critical

This particular day LSE was looking extremely tired, having over flogged his body.

He told me he had been sleeping in the office for about 3 days, busy putting his papers together to enable him close a massive business deal, which he eventually got, after fighting like a lion whose cub was taken by a lone leopard!

LSE overwhelmed every opposition. He fought like Mohammed Alli, the world’s greatest boxer of all time. LSE won.
And that changed everything for him, too, forever. Fortune favours the Brave

Our conversation that day went like this:

LSE: Tim, congrats you are doing well, I can see. Indeed I instructed all my staff to make sure they read any article you published (“I felt flattered”).

Tim: Chairman, I need your help, KONGA is not ready to give me the products I needed on credit and I don’t have cash to pay and the client will not pay me until after 9 months.

Tough one, indeed.

LSE: Tim, I will be honest with you, there is no way KONGA would give you products worth N500M (10 years ago money!) on credit.

Indeed, we held a meeting on Monday over your matter, the resolution of the Zinox Group is that you must look for cash before you can get the products. Let me tell you, my staff made me to sign-off on our resolution that as the Chairman of Zinox , I, LSE will not go behind to do the opposite of what we all agreed to, and I signed. Tim, I am sorry, my hands are tied!

As of that time, some of the young people LSE helped disappointed him badly. So bad, some souls are ungrateful.

Tim: Chairman, I know some of the people you helped even went to the extent of wrongfully blackmailing you in the media. I know that for a fact.

But Chairman, I am different. I am Tim Akano, I won’t disappoint you.
I will remain eternally grateful if you can still think out- of -the box and help me out.

I added: Chairman, you recall you were the one who looked for me that you would give me a helping hand in life.
I think my last statement touched him.
LSE Tim, I will give you my personal cheque. Here is the cheque for you, take it to KONGA and pay for your goods to meet your deadline.

Tim On getting to KONGA, from my steps and tone, the staff knew something positive had happened.
I confidently presented my cheque to Loretta & Co, the lady managing our account in KONGA then
They were shell shocked that God pulled it through for me another time, using Leo Stan Ekeh.

There were many more positive interventions, which I will reserve for my memoir.

Lessons: The reason behind the rise and rise of Leo Stan Ekeh (LSE) has to do partly because of his massive generosity, most of them are done silently.
Yes, LSE is a shrewd businessman, but he has a heart of a butterfly.

2 LSE is unconquerable and himself and his lineage will remain so because of several lives he has impacted positively

3 We are all products of people’s generosity. No one is a self-made man. In my own corner, through the TIM AKANO FOUNDATION, I am giving back in thousands folds all the kindness I am enjoying from people like LSE & others. I’m not withholding any kindness from people who need it when it’s within my capacity. God saw my heart, too, that when he must have helped me to stand, I will light thousands of candles.

It was William Shakespeare who admonished his followers to tell him all the good things they wanted to tell him while he was still alive because tributes written in beautiful prose means nothing to a dead person.

I congratulate LSE children, they have a great father in and his legendary generosity will always speak for them up to the 4th generation., as the Holy Bible said. LSE children should be proud of their father, he is a Lion, an Eagle and a butterfly, (LEB) all together at the same time.

@LSE: Sir, if you manage to read this short public appreciation, which I was inspired to write in a wedding event (the couple is taking over one hour to come out, instead of joining people who are anxious, I decided to use my idle time to pay you this tribute today), I want you to feel proud of yourself; what you have achieved will take an average person 10 lifetimes to achieve.

Your positive numerous interventions in my entrepreneurship journey have germinated and I am also touching lives- like you- in thousands across Africa, not only in Nigeria, especially with regards to Youth Empowerment.

I am eternally grateful, my chairman, my destiny-helper.

My prayer for you my Chairman, LSE: The Lion, the Eagle, the Butterfly (LEB) is for God to keep you continuously in sound, divine health, peace and happiness- that you will still remain strong at 120 years of age like the Biblical Moses who miraculously escaped physical depreciation in his eyes, strength and mental magnitude.🙏

Gratitude!
Gratitude!!
Gratitude!!!

[email protected]

Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has urged President Bola Tinubu to “urgently direct Mr Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice to widely publish a certified true copy of the version of the tax bills received from the National Assembly and a certified true copy of the tax laws signed by you.”

SERAP

The documents requested by SERAP are the National Revenue Service (Establishment) Act, Joint Revenue Board of Nigeria (Establishment) Act, Nigeria Tax Administration Act; and Nigeria Tax Act.

SERAP urged Tinubu “to direct Mr Lateef Fagbemi to clarify whether the version of the tax bills received from the National Assembly are exactly the same contents as the bills that were signed into law by you and the version ultimately gazetted.”

The body made the demand of President Tinubu in a Freedom of Information request dated December 20, 2025.

It was signed by its Deputy Director, Kolawole Oluwadare.

The organisation said in the FOI request: “The law-making processes including the passing of any bills and signing them into laws, as well as gazetting the laws must meet the requirements of the Nigerian Constitution, the rule of law and separation of powers.

“This means that any passed bills and signed laws must be accessible, authentic, intelligible, clear, legitimate, and predictable so that people can know and comply with them.

“Clarifying whether the version of the tax bills received from the National Assembly are exactly the same contents as the bills that were signed into laws by the President and tax laws ultimately gazetted would promote transparency and accountability, and help to address any threats to Nigerians’ human rights.

“We would be grateful if the recommended measures are taken within 7 days of the receipt and/or publication of this letter. If we have not heard from you by then, SERAP shall take all appropriate legal actions to compel your government and the Attorney General to comply with our request in the public interest.

“Widely publishing the certified true copies of the tax bills passed by the National Assembly and the tax laws signed by the President and the gazetted versions would also allow Nigerians to identify if the provisions of the laws are consistent with their human rights, and seek effective remedies to challenge any infractions of the rights.

“Your government has the obligations under the Nigerian Constitution and the human rights treaties to which the country is a state party to promptly, independently, impartially, transparently and effectively investigate the alleged unlawful allegations of the tax laws and to ensure full accountability in this case.

“Our requests are brought in the public interest, and in keeping with the requirements of the Nigerian Constitution, the Freedom of Information Act, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights to Nigeria is a state party.

“According to our information, the National Assembly recently alleged that there are unlawful alterations and some material differences between the tax bills passed by the legislative body and the tax laws gazetted by the Federal Government.

“A Sokoto lawmaker, Abdussamad Dasuki, raised the issue under a matter of privilege, drawing the attention of the House to the alleged discrepancies between the harmonised versions of the tax bills passed by both chambers of the National Assembly and the copies gazetted by the Federal Government.

“The National Assembly said the alterations contained in the gazetted copies did not receive legislative approval. These alleged unlawful alterations raise questions over the legality and legitimacy of both the law-making processes and the versions of the tax laws currently being circulated by the Federal Ministry of Information.

“The National Assembly established that substantive provisions were inserted, deleted, or modified after passage by both chambers. Several oversight, accountability, and reporting mechanisms approved by parliament were reportedly removed in the final Acts. New coercive and fiscal powers (e.g., arrest powers, garnish without court order, compulsory USD computation, appeal security deposits) were also reportedly inserted in the final Acts without legislative approval.

“Section 39 of the Nigerian Constitution, article 9 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and article 19 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights guarantee the right to seek, receive and impart information.

“The Nigerian Constitution, the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights impose duties on your government to ensure transparency and accountability in lawmaking processes.

“By the combined reading of the provisions of the Nigerian Constitution, the Freedom of Information Act, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights, there are transparency obligations imposed on your government to widely publish the certified true copies of the version of the tax bills received from the National Assembly and the tax laws signed by you.

“The Nigerian Constitution, Freedom of Information Act, and the human rights treaties rest on the principle that citizens should have access to information regarding their government’s activities.”