At what point did death become ordinary to us?
At what point did kidnapping become a line item in the
national budget of suffering?
Because every single day now, somewhere in Nigeria, somebody
is running into the bush barefoot… somebody is watching their child disappear
into the back of a Hilux van… somebody is identifying a body in a mortuary… and
somebody in government is preparing a speech about "hope."
Hope?
Hope does not hide in fear. Hope does not pay ransom. Hope
does not bury teachers. Hope does not abandon schoolchildren in captivity while
politicians share campaign posters and dance on podiums.
Let’s speak plainly with numbers.
Because this is not a rumour. This is not an opinion. These
are documented facts written in Nigerian blood.
According to Nigeria’s National Bureau of Statistics,
614,937 Nigerians were killed and more than 2.2 million were kidnapped between
May 2023 and April 2024. That means over two million neighbours, relatives, and
children were taken in just one year, in one country…our country.
Since 2019, Nigeria has recorded at least 735 mass
abductions, affecting more than 15,398 people. These figures cover only
incidents involving more than five victims at a time; the number of individual
kidnappings is far higher. Foundation for Investigative Journalism
From 2019 to 2023, the number of kidnapping incidents
increased by over 400%. In the first half of 2024 alone, 4,777 people were
reported abducted. Over 1,000 people were killed in connection with kidnapping
incidents between 2023 and 2024.
Between July 2022 and June 2023, 3,620 people were abducted
across 582 kidnapping cases, with five billion naira paid in ransom--- families
selling land, livestock, and their last hope just to get their children back.
In just the first half of 2025, at least 2,266 people were
killed by insurgents or armed bandits, surpassing the total number of
casualties for all the previous year.
Since May 2023, Amnesty International has confirmed at least
10,217 people killed in armed attacks across Benue, Plateau, Katsina, Kebbi,
Sokoto, Zamfara, and Edo states, with Benue alone accounting for nearly 7,000
deaths, and Plateau over 2,600.
In Zamfara state, attacks have occurred daily, multiple
attacks sometimes taking place in a single day. Bandits have sacked 638
villages and currently control 725 villages across 13 local governments. Those
are not statistics. Those are communities erased from the map.
In November 2025, at least 402 people, mostly schoolchildren,
were kidnapped across four states in the north-central region, surpassing even
the horror of the 2014 Chibok abductions. And what trended on Nigerian social
media that same week? A celebrity's outfit. A football argument. A gossip story
that will be forgotten in a matter of days.
While our brothers and sisters are dying in Benue, while
children are marching through the forest at gunpoint in Kaduna, while mothers
in Plateau are burying their sons in shallow ground, we are on Twitter debating
nonsense. We are creating hashtags about entertainment. We are sharing gossip
reels and minding celebrity drama while a genocide crawls across our nation's
belly.
Let’s stop it.
Stop trending #CelebrityDrama while #BenueIsBleeding is not
even on your lips. Stop sharing videos of parties while communities are being
emptied at gunpoint. Your silence is not neutral. Your distraction is not
innocent. Every moment you spend trading gossip while your country burns, you
are handing power to those who are counting on your inattention.
In the book of Nehemiah, chapter 4, when the walls of
Jerusalem were broken and enemies threatened destruction, Nehemiah did not call
a party. He did not seek entertainment. He posted watchmen at every broken
section and said: "Do not be afraid of them. Remember the Lord, great and
awesome, and fight for your brothers, your sons, your daughters, your wives,
and your homes." (Nehemiah 4:14)
That is the call for this hour.
We are tired.
We are not merely frustrated. We are not simply
disappointed. We are exhausted in our bones. We are traumatized in our spirits.
We are a people who have been promised safety and delivered carnage,
administration after administration.
You swore an oath. You collected our taxes. You command the
army, the police, the intelligence services. And still, 144 people were killed
by herdsmen in Plateau and Benue states in just 14 days in April 2025. Still,
between 100 and 200 people were massacred in Yelwata, a farming village less
than five miles from the state capital of Benue. Still, families are sleeping
in the open after their villages were burned to the ground.
You have convoys. You have bulletproof cars. You have police
escorts. You sleep safe while your citizens are hunted.
Proverbs 29:2 says: "When the righteous are in
authority, the people rejoice; but when the wicked rule, the people
groan."
Nigeria is groaning. And that groan is your indictment.
We are not asking for perfection. We are asking for
presence. Show up. Respond. Protect. Prosecute. Make an arrest, a real one.
Make an example. Show Nigerians that the blood of a farmer in Benue matters as
much as the blood of a politician in Abuja.
If you will not do that, then step aside for those who will.
Pastors, imams, bishops, sheikhs, and general overseers with
millions of followers, the men and women who speak each week to some of the
largest gatherings in this country, you have the ears of this nation. You have
the platforms. You have the moral authority. And too many of you have been
silent.
Too many of you preach prosperity but will not speak about
the poverty of justice. Too many of you pray for breakthroughs but will not
call out the leadership that is breaking this country. Too many of you collect
political patronage from the very men whose policies are killing your own
congregants.
Ezekiel 33:6 says: "But if the watchman sees the sword
coming and does not blow the trumpet, and the people are not warned, and the
sword comes and takes any person from among them… his blood I will require at
the watchman's hand."
You are the watchmen.
The sword has come. It has been coming for years. Villages
are burning, children are in captivity, and your silence is deafening.
Isaiah 58:1 says: "Cry aloud, spare not, lift up your
voice like a trumpet, and tell my people their transgressions."
It is time. Speak from your pulpits and your minarets not
just about personal blessings, but about national justice. Call your political
affiliates to account. Name the failure. Pray and act. Intercede and speak.
Because faith without works, even the faith of a nation's spiritual leaders, is
dead.
We do not need you to be partisan. We need you to be
prophetic.
To those who praise this government blindly:
What exactly are you defending?
A country where families in the Northwest are selling their
farmland to pay ransoms of two to five million naira? A country where criminals
negotiate openly like businessmen? A country where a citizen must pray before
every road journey?
Patriotism is not silence. Loyalty is not blindness. And
supporting a government should never require you to ignore the blood on the
ground.
Even the tragedy surrounding the late Mr. Fatai Adegoke of
Ogbomosho sparked national outrage and confusion because Nigerians are
exhausted, and exhaustion makes people desperate, afraid, and quick to believe
the worst. That exhaustion is real. That fear is real.
What is not real is the illusion that everything is fine.
And perhaps the greatest tragedy is not the killings alone.
It is our adjustment to the killings.
We scroll past massacre headlines while eating lunch. We
discuss kidnappings for two days and move on. We have normalized horror.
Romans 12:21 says, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome
evil with good.”
A nation dies not only when people are killed, but when
conscience is killed. When outrage is traded for gossip. When we choose trends
over truth.
And now I speak directly to the Nigerian voter.
To the market woman. To the student. To the unemployed
graduate. To the man who complains every day at the beer parlour. To the woman
crying over food prices and insecurity.
If in 2027 you still vote for politicians who ignored your
suffering… if you still trade your future for tribe, religion, or ₦5,000… if
you still cheer leaders who cannot protect lives…
then understand this:
You are no longer just victims of bad governance. You have
become accomplices to it.
Democracy is not magic. It is memory.
And a people without political memory will suffer the same
tragedy again and again, and call it destiny.
Nigeria does not merely need new slogans.
Nigeria needs leaders who fear the tears of citizens more
than they fear losing elections.
Nigeria needs religious leaders who speak truth to power
even when power is funding the offering.
Nigeria needs citizens who are as loud about death as they
are about drama.
Because the true measure of a government is not the number
of speeches it gives, but whether ordinary people can sleep through the night
without fear of never waking up.
And today, across this country, 65,000 people are internally
displaced in Plateau state alone, refugees inside their own homeland. Amnesty
International
That is the indictment.
And history, unlike politicians, does not forget.
"Speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves,
for the rights of all who are destitute. Speak up and judge fairly; defend the
rights of the poor and needy.", Proverbs 31:8–9
The time to speak is now. Not tomorrow. Now
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