HOW many mass abductions have we recorded in Nigeria since Chibok in 2014? Can you count them? What kind of people are we? What kind of minds wake up every morning to meticulously plan how to steal someone’s child, lock them away in a forest, expose them to hunger, rain, mosquitoes, fear and uncertainty for weeks?
At what point did cruelty become a profession in Nigeria, indeed a sector of the economy?
These are question that have refused to leave the lips of many Nigerians. Really, what kind of people have we become?
What kind of human beings look at a toddler, a child, a young girl, an old woman, and see not innocence but opportunity?
The abduction of the Oriire children and countless other kidnapping incidents across Nigeria have dragged us to a frightening place where the safety of a child is no longer guaranteed by the walls of a home, the gates of a school, or even the sacred environment of a place of worship.
Children who should be worrying about homework, friendships, examinations and dreams are learning words that no child should know: ransom, kidnappers, captivity, survival.
A child should know the comfort of a mother’s embrace, not the coldness of a forest floor. A child should know the sound of a school bell, not the sound of gunshots.
A child should know bedtime stories, not the frightening whispers of criminals discussing their fate as he shivers and his empty stomach twists and rumbles.
What kind of sickness has entered the heart of a society where human beings can keep children under the rain and scorching sun for 56 days and still sleep at night?
How these people sleep, function? Are they even still human, these men who walk past crying children, bewildered women and helpless men and negotiate their fates on a phone? Are these human beings?
A healthy society does not produce such monsters. Maybe it’s time to admit we are no longer what the creator created.
A healthy society does not tolerate such evil but here we are, for years suckling these demons. Do humans breastfeed demons? Tell me.
A healthy society does not become used to the suffering of its own people.
And yet, Nigeria appears to be fighting a battle not only against criminals with guns but against a dangerous disease of indifference, muttering ‘It is well’ and ‘ we will get out of it’. Pray, tell me how.
Before tears of one family dries, there is sorrow in a dozen more, and before you finish writing one story, it has become yesterday’s news. The pain of one community becomes another statistic. Another kidnapping happens, another outrage erupts, another promise is made, and then the nation moves on, in fear, uncertainty until the next tragedy arrives.
Yes, the sun comes out every morning and the birds sing but isn’t this the end of the world? How did the evil roaming our streets become a endless stream of stories and condolence government statements and ‘may this never happen again’ prayers?
Every time a child is kidnapped, there is a mother whose heart stops every time her phone rings. There is a father who walks around pretending to be strong while silently falling apart inside. There are siblings who look at an empty chair at the dining table and wonder if their brother or sister will ever return. Yet for the abductors, it just another day in business, a mere money making venture.
Demons everywhere, brazen, daring.
They have now expanded their business territory to examination halls, turned our schools into hunting grounds. What kind of wickedness makes people storm a place where children are writing examinations and decide that those children’s futures are worth destroying?
The WAEC examination is not just another school activity. For many Nigerian children, it is a bridge between poverty and possibility. It is a document that can open doors, determine careers and shape destinies.
The teenager sitting in an examination hall is not just a student. That child carries the dreams of parents who have sacrificed everything. That child carries the hope of a family waiting for a better tomorrow.
So what kind of person looks at a room full of young people trying to build their future and thinks: ‘These are my targets’?
What kind of darkness convinces someone that destroying innocent lives is a path to wealth or power?
Who gave birth to these demons?
And perhaps the most painful question is how did we get here?
How did criminals become so bold?
How did they acquire the confidence to walk into communities, attack churches, kill worshippers and abduct people during moments meant for prayer and peace, force people to abandon their ancestral homesteads.
Didn’t the Yorubas have a saying: Ese kii se lasan’. Tragedies do not occur without a reason. And that if a fire burns and crosses the river, there is a power behind it.
The church, the mosque, the school, the home – these are supposed to be places of refuge. They are supposed to represent safety. But when criminals begin to invade even sacred spaces, it tells us that something has gone terribly wrong.
A society where people cannot pray without fear, travel without fear, sleep without fear or send their children to school without fear is a society crying for healing, desperately.
But perhaps one of the most disturbing issues is the suggestion that some of these criminal networks may enjoy support, protection or sympathy from people who should know better.
If anyone – for political advantage, financial benefit or personal ambition – sponsors, protects or negotiates with evil people, then that person is not simply playing politics. That person is gambling with the future of a nation.
Because what kind of political victory is achieved by destroying children?
What kind of power is gained from the tears of widows?
What kind of influence is built on the blood of innocent people?
A person who uses the suffering of citizens as a ladder to climb into power is not a leader. That person is part of the sickness.
And if are allowed to travel, receive support, celebrate victories and operate with confidence while ordinary Nigerians live in fear, then the question must be asked: who is failing whom?
This is not just about security forces. It is about the entire ecosystem that allows evil to survive, thrive.
A criminal does not operate successfully without weaknesses around him. There are informants. There are financiers. There are people who know and keep quiet. There are those who benefit from chaos.
The tragedy is that the victims are always the weakest.
The farmer. The student. The worshipper.
The mother. The child.
Never the powerful.
Nigeria must confront this sickness honestly. We cannot continue to describe every tragedy as ‘unfortunate’ and move on.
Some things are not just unfortunate; they are unacceptable.
A nation must protect its children because children are the future walking in human form.
A nation must protect its elderly because they are the memory of society.
A nation must protect its women because they are the foundation of families. When a society fails these groups, it is not just facing insecurity. It is digging its own pit.
So again, the question remains:
Is this the land of the sick or what?
Because a healthy nation cannot watch its children disappear and respond with only prayers and condolences.
A healthy nation cannot allow evil men become more organised than the institutions created to stop them.
A sane nation cannot become a place where survival and resilience are considered an achievement. Resilience cannot and should not replace resistance in the face of evil.
Nigeria is not short of good people. We are not short of brave citizens. We are not short of men and women who want peace.
But goodness has remained too silent for too long and now evil has become confident.
The battle for Nigeria’s soul is not only about defeating criminals with weapons. It is about defeating the culture of acceptance that says, ‘This is how things are now.’ No. This is not the Nigeria we knew, the Nigeria we inherited. This is a demon-infested conglomerate.
This must never become a new normal because a child crying in a forest is not normal.
A teenager kidnapped from an examination hall is not normal.
A worshipper killed during prayer is not normal. An old man beheaded by criminals is not normal.
A nation must know when it is bleeding and Nigeria is deathly pale, right now.