General News
(Opinion) How educators can help stem the tide of cyberbullying
By Akin Banuso, Country Manager, Microsoft Nigeria,
It’s perhaps one of the great paradoxes of our time – the opportunities that technology presents come with complexities that can be difficult to navigate. Nowhere is this more evident than in today’s classrooms. Whiletechnology is helping transform the learning experience in profound ways, it can also leave students exposed to significant online risk if the right measures aren’t in place.
A recent survey on online bullying in the Middle East and North Africa revealed the depth of the challenge educators and parents face, highlighting that at least 85 percent of UAE children have been bullied online.
In Nigeria, the government has addressed this plight through the provision for an Act that protects people from cyberbullying. However, there is much that still needs to be done in curbing cyberbullying by providing effective means of prosecuting cases in this regard and by raising awareness of the Cybercrimes Act in order to encourage victims of to report the offenders.
As a means of dealing with a wide variety of technology-based threats, the National Assembly enacted an Act called The Cybercrimes (Prohibition, Prevention, Etc.) Act 2015 Cybercrimes (” Cybercrimes Act”) with the purpose of providing an effective and unified legal, regulatory and institutional framework for the prohibition, prevention, detection, prosecution and punishment of cybercrimes in Nigeria. It’s worth noting there two specific forms of cyberbullying have been criminalised – cyberstalking and racial and homophobic offenses.
Vast research has showed that children lack the necessary supervision required to effectively safeguard them from becoming victims of any form of cyberbullying. While parents have a role to play in limiting and supervising access to the internet, educators can also make a key difference. The more teachers are equipped themselves to deal with cyberbullying, the better the chance we have of combatting the online threat. In fact, there are several powerful ways we as adults can intervene in the cycle of online bullying.
Helping to prevent cyberbullying begins with listening to children. Ask them to talk about their lives. Sit with younger children while they play and explore online. It’s a good idea to regularly ask tweens and teens to show you around the websites they visit, where they hang out, who with, and how they talk to each other. This is particularly important in a school setting, where online activities should be closely monitored so that appropriate online behaviour can be encouraged.
There are also ways of watching out for signs of online cruelty. This typically involves taking note when children get upset while online or texting, or when they have a reluctance to be at school. At the same time, teachers can keep an eye out for children being mean to others online.
Greater awareness around the consequences of bullying can assist in discouraging a culture of cyberbullying. Help children understand that cyberbullying can get them into serious trouble. In some cases, this might even involve legal ramifications. At the same time, encourage them to think about the psychological effects cyberbullying might have on others.
Its important children feel they can report cyberbullying to you. Microsoft’s recent Digital Civility Index reveals that while cyberbullying is frequently listed as one of the most painful online risks, just 56 percent of teens in Turkey and 46 percent in South Africa ask for help when dealing with an online threat.
To counteract this, adults need to promise unconditional support. Part of this involves reassuring children that you won’t curtail phone, gaming, or computer privileges because of others’ behaviour. In the context of a classroom specifically, this would also involve providing students with an anonymous platform from which they can report cyberbullying.
One of the most effective ways to prevent online bullying is social and emotional learning—the process through which we learn to build strong relationships and develop healthy boundaries and self-perceptions.
Key to this is promoting empathy and kindness. Actively teach thoughtfulness. This can help students understand how small, thoughtful actions can make a huge difference in others’ lives.
Educators can even advocate for empathy training at school or start a kindness campaign within their classrooms. This could be as simple as each student agreeing to do one kind thing a day, or it could have a much broader scope, such as developing a programme to challenge a culture of criticism with the school. Similar campaigns can be replicated at home or even in a broader neighbourhood.
As a teacher, you can collaborate with other educators to create programmes that explicitly address social-emotional skills. In fact, collaborative learning platforms can enable students to work together respectfully and to negotiate as they co-create. For example, by having students learn how to accommodate the needs of others when creating worlds in Minecraft, teachers can find opportunities to develop deeper emotional literacy and introduce strategies to resolve challenges or understand perspectives.
Like teachers, parents have a critical role in identifying and stopping cyberbullying. As a parent, you might be surprised how difficult it can be for a child to admit, even to you, that they are being bullied. To help them get past this, create an environment that allows them to feel safe to tell you the full story. From there, together, you can come up with a plan of action. Encourage your child not to retaliate and to rather ignore or block the bully. Save the online discussions as evidence just in case it escalates to threats of violence and the police need to be involved. Approach their teacher or school counsellor and find out what steps can be taken to prevent it from happening in the future.
Reassure your child that they always have your support and shouldn’t feel ashamed. Get them involved in activities that make them feel good so that they can move on and heal from the incident.
At the end of the day, combatting online risks like cyberbullying begins with promoting digital civility and helping one another to be responsible digital citizens.
Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has called on President Bola Tinubu to direct, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), attorney general of the federation and minister of Justice; Olatunji Rilwan Disu, inspector-general of Police, and relevant anti-corruption agencies to investigate allegations that more than ₦6.79 billion in public funds were missing, diverted or misapplied within the Nigeria Police Force and the Federal Ministry of Police Affairs.
The allegations are contained in the Auditor-General of the Federation’s 2022 Annual Report, published on September 9, 2025.
In a letter dated August 1, 2026, and signed by Kolawole Oluwadare, deputy director, SERAP, the organisation urged the government to ensure that anyone implicated in the report is prosecuted and that all missing public funds, firearms and ammunition are recovered.
“Anyone suspected to be responsible—including contractors, companies and public officials implicated in the report—should be promptly prosecuted, while all missing public funds, firearms and ammunition should be fully recovered, secured and properly accounted for.”
SERAP described the Auditor-General’s findings as a serious breach of public trust.
“The Auditor-General’s findings suggest a grave betrayal of the public trust and raise serious concerns about corruption and the management of public funds, police exhibits, firearms and ammunition.”
The organisation also expressed concern over allegations involving missing firearms, unauthorised use and release of police exhibits, and poor storage of weapons.
“The report also raises serious concerns over missing firearms and ammunition, the unauthorised use and release of police exhibits, failures to properly account for exhibits, and the insecure storage of firearms, creating significant risks to public safety and national security.”
According to SERAP, the alleged diversion of funds meant for policing and the reported irregularities have weakened the operational effectiveness of the Nigeria Police Force.
“The diversion of funds meant for policing, abandoned security projects, missing firearms and ammunition, and the misuse of police exhibits undermine the operational effectiveness of the Nigeria Police Force, weaken public confidence and may contribute to Nigeria’s worsening insecurity.”
The organisation said the Auditor-General’s report documented several alleged financial irregularities, including payments for projects that were never executed, abandoned contracts, inflated contract costs, irregular procurement, unretired cash advances, unsettled insurance claims and payments for services allegedly not rendered.
“The report documented numerous alleged financial irregularities within the Nigeria Police Force and the Federal Ministry of Police Affairs, including payments for projects that were never executed, abandoned contracts, inflated contract costs, and irregular procurement.”
“The report also documented unretired cash advances, unsettled insurance claims, payments for services allegedly not rendered, and other suspected diversion and misapplication of public funds amounting to over ₦6.79 billion.”SERAP further cited allegations of missing firearms and ammunition, failures to properly account for recovered weapons and exhibits, and insecure storage of firearms.
“The allegations also include missing firearms and ammunition, the unauthorised use and release of police exhibits, failures to properly account for recovered firearms and other exhibits, and the insecure storage of firearms, posing serious risks to public safety and national security.”
The organisation gave the Federal Government seven days to act on its demands, warning that it would pursue legal action if no response is received.
“We would be grateful if the recommended measures are taken within seven days of the receipt and/or publication of this letter. If we have not heard from you by then, SERAP shall consider appropriate legal action to compel your government to comply with our request in the public interest.”
SERAP also argued that the allegations, if left unaddressed, would violate constitutional provisions requiring the government to combat corruption and safeguard the welfare and security of Nigerians.
Among the specific findings cited from the Auditor-General’s report were allegations of payments for abandoned and unexecuted police projects worth hundreds of millions of naira, inflated contract values, unretired cash advances, irregular procurement processes, unsettled insurance claims exceeding ₦681 million, over ₦1 billion in uncleared insurance policy liabilities, missing firearms and ammunition, unauthorised release of police exhibits, and contracts allegedly awarded without due diligence by the Federal Ministry of Police Affairs.
Sunday Dare, special adviser to the President on Media and Public Communication, has faulted the criticism directed at President Bola Tinubu and his economic policies by John Cardinal Onaiyekan, Archbishop Emeritus and the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN).
Sunday Dare, special adviser to the President on Media and Public Communication,
During an interview with Arise TV, Onaiyekan, who had led Catholic Bishops on a visit to the President, revealed details of their discussion.
“When the nation is bleeding, you cannot expect a polite meeting with the Head of State. We told him the economy is not helping our poor people; he told us the economy is doing fine. Frankly speaking, he told us quite clearly that he did not agree with us,” Onaiyekan said.
He added, “We didn’t expect him to agree with us. We have done our duty, we have delivered our message, and we have a feeling that somehow, along the line, somebody will show him a few of the things we said.”
Reacting, Dare stated that while Onaiyekan and his cohort choose the easy path of populist lamentation, the facts of President Tinubu’s administration reveal a relentless, methodical restoration of the Nigerian state. He said that by courageously removing the petrol subsidy and unifying the foreign exchange windows within his first days in office, President Tinubu ended decades of economic illusion.
“State and local governments now receive record-breaking monthly allocations from the Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC), enabling governors—including those in the Catholic heartlands—to pay salaries, fund local infrastructure, and service pensions promptly. The debt service-to-revenue ratio has been dramatically slashed to under 65%, pulling Nigeria back from the edge of default and restoring international credit rating confidence, he said..
According to Dare, the administration did not merely reform numbers; it invested in human dignity. He noted that through the landmark establishment of the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND), millions of indigent students across tertiary institutions now access interest-free loans for tuition and stipends. “Academic calendar stability has been restored, ending the agony of prolonged university strikes that once paralysed national development,” he said.
The presidential spokesperson revealed that to counter global inflation and local supply shocks, the Tinubu administration deployed emergency agricultural interventions that involve direct distribution of hundreds of thousands of metric tons of grains and fertilisers to smallholder farmers nationwide, the multi-billion naira investments in dry-season farming, mechanisation hubs, and irrigation infrastructure aimed at achieving permanent food self-sufficiency.
He said to understand the weight of President Tinubu’s achievements, one must first measure the abyss Nigeria faced on the eve of his inauguration. He recalled that in May 2023, the Nigerian nation was hovering on the precipice of total economic collapse and structural paralysis.
“The unsustainable petrol subsidy regime was draining trillion-naira holes into the national treasury monthly, enriching a parasitic cabal of smugglers and middlemen while starving sub-national governments of basic infrastructure funding. A fraudulent multi-tiered foreign exchange system had turned the Central Bank of Nigeria into an arbitrage engine, crippling legitimate manufacturing, scaring off foreign direct investment, and burning through scarce external reserves.
“The nation’s debt service-to-revenue ratio had spiralled to an unsustainable 97 per cent, meaning Nigeria was literally borrowing money to pay interest on past loans while operational governance ran on fiscal fumes. This was the broken, bleeding nation handed over to President Tinubu. It required bold surgery, not diplomatic sedation. Yet, when the President applied the sharp scalpel of structural reform, armchair critics and political opponents decried the incision while ignoring the terminal tumour it removed,” he said.
General News
Lenacapavir, HIV Injectable Drug Offers Pregnant, Lactating Mothers 100 Percent Protection – Study
Lenacapavir, injectable HIV prevention drug, has been found to provide 100 percent protection against HIV infection among pregnant and breastfeeding women using it as pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP).
This is according to sub-study of the landmark clinical trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of the twice-yearly injectable HIV prevention drug.
The Phase 3 PURPOSE 1 trial results, published in the Lancet Medical Journal last week and presented at the ongoing 2026 International AIDS Conference Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, show the injection to be safe for use in pregnancy.
While Lenacapavir was previously studied and demonstrated high efficacy and safety as PrEP in cisgender women, its use during pregnancy and lactation, when women are disproportionately vulnerable to HIV acquisition, was not described in the initial studies that formed the World Health Organisation’s global recommendation for the drug.
Now, in the latest study, Dr Flavia Matovu Kiweewa, a senior Research Scientist at MUJHU, said they checked for drug traces in breast milk and exposure to an unborn baby and found drug exposure levels across all trimesters and postpartum were comparable to non-pregnant participants, confirming no dose adjustments are needed for this group.
Among 5345 women enrolled between Sept 28, 2021, and Sept 15, 2023, 487 participants, 184 allocated to Lenacapavir and 303 allocated to oral PrEP, had one or more pregnancies, resulting in 509 total pregnancies with 512 pregnancy outcomes, including three sets of twins.
While the study involved women aged between 16 and 26 years in both South Africa and Uganda, 80 percent of all the pregnancies recorded were in Uganda. Results show Lenacapavir was present in breast milk, but exposure in breastfed infants was minimal. Drug concentrations were measured in the blood of the mothers, breast milk, and breastfed infants’ blood.
Kiweewa said thatthese results are a breakthrough as pregnant and postpartum women face elevated vulnerability of HIV acquisition, yet historically they have been excluded from early prevention trials, leading to years-long evidence gaps.
The study compared twice-yearly Lenacapavir with daily oral PrEP in women who were not pregnant at enrollment.
But, unlike previous studies, women who got pregnant while participating in the study were, for the first time, left on their allocated study drug.
Now, because of the new findings, Kiweewa said at one of their study sites in Mityana District Hospital, they have decided to dedicate seventy percent of their drug supplies to women.
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