The rate of insecurity in Nigeria has reached an unprecedented scale. Virtually everyone is now living in acute, absolute fear. The country has never had it so bad. Yet, the political class carries on as if nothing is amiss. The ruling elite remains fixated only on upcoming elections and consolidating power, while the country bleeds. Criminal bandits and terrorists are having a field day across the nation, killing and maiming at will, kidnapping with absolute impunity, and deciding who lives and dies while the government and security apparatus watch helplessly.
To understand the depths of the hell Nigeria has descended into, one only needs to look at the harrowing tragedy of a 23-year-old girl. Barely an adult, still full of dreams, she was snatched by bandits. The ransom demanded? A staggering 50 million naira. Her family begged, pleaded, and cried for mercy. The bandits refused to reduce a single kobo.
For two agonising weeks, her father fought like a lion. He borrowed, sold, and bled himself dry to raise every single kobo. Finally, he had the 50 million. He called his daughter’s captors, desperate to hear her voice one more time before paying for her freedom.
She came on the phone. But instead of begging to be saved, she told her father: “Papa please Do not pay. I will kill myself if they release me.”
Because for fourteen days, fourteen unthinkable, merciless days, those terrorist monsters had been raping and violating her. Over and over. Daily. Hourly. They had systematically destroyed her soul while she was still breathing. Nothing was left!
When the bandits heard what she said, they shot her in the head. Close range! Then, with chilling cruelty, they sent her family the video and pictures of her final moments.
That girl didn’t just die. She was brutally murdered, after being tortured in ways no human being should ever suffer. Now imagine for a moment that this girl was your daughter! How would you feel?
This is not an isolated horror. According to recent intelligence reports, Nigeria has seen thousands of citizens abducted in mass kidnappings over the last year alone, with billions of naira demanded in ransom. Yet, there are people in government and public offices saddled with the task of providing security. They keep drawing their bloated salaries and remain in their positions with absolutely nothing to show for it. Worse still, in some cases, security officials actively collude with these terrorists and bandits to torment Nigerians in their own country.
Things have deteriorated so rapidly that the United States recently felt compelled to act. In a damning indictment of our internal security failures, U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) had to launch pre-emptive precision drone strikes against terrorist and bandit camps in Nigeria’s northwest. When a sovereign nation relies on foreign militaries to strike criminals within its own borders because its own leaders are paralyzed, the misery continues unabated.
Wait a minute! Are we still referring to Nigeria that used to go on peace keeping operations, restoring sanity in countries like Liberia, Sierra Leone and Congo? Are we still referring to the so called Giant of Africa? What has changed? Why and how have things deteriorated so rapidly bad that Nigerians are now routinely displaced in their own country and are now being picked one by one by marauding terrorist bandits?
Who do we blame? Are we cursed or are we the cause? Who do we turn to for help?
This is not about politics anymore. This is about our humanity. This is about mothers who will never hold their daughters and sons again. Fathers who gather huge ransom only to receive a corpse. Young children who go to sleep terrified that tonight might be their turn.
If this story does not move you to demand radical change, then the agony and misery will continue until it touches everyone. No, this is not “just politics.” This is a nation bleeding to death. And we are the ones who must stop the bleeding. Nigerians must rise up to hold all political and security officials to account. Let everyone do their respective jobs. Because a government that can no longer provide security for citizens has failed. Monumentally so. The government my pretend to be in office but it is no longer in POWER!
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