Let us begin today’s dialogue with an echo from William Shakespeare: as flies to wanton boys, so are we to the terrorists, they kill us for their sport. Another way of saying this is that our lives as Nigerian citizens have become playthings in the hands of gunmen. The most recent example of this orgy of wanton destruction of lives was on Sunday March, 29 2026 at Angwan Rukuba area of Jos, Plateau state. The tragedy occurred on Palm Sunday, a very significant day in the Christian calendar.

The tragedy also occurred at the same time the political class, PDP precisely, was holding its national convention in Abuja amidst thunderous drumming and singing led by their new leader who also doubles as the FCT Minister. The ruling APC had its own national convention a day earlier.
As usual, and in a manner similar to that of Yelewata attacks in Benue state, June last year, the gunmen rode confidently to Angwan Rukuba on motor bikes, they opened fire sporadically on traders and commuters leaving more than 25 bullet-ridden lifeless bodies on the ground in a pool of blood. Again, as it is usual in Nigeria, it took more than one hour before security forces appeared on the scene, by which time the gunmen had escaped to safety. On-lookers videoed the gory spectacle with their camera phones and in no time, the tragedy became awash on social media.

Recall that this is the second time Angwan Rukuba area is in the news for the same reason. On December 24, 2010, (Christmas eve), there was a bomb blast in the same vicinity claiming the lives of many residents who were shopping for the Christmas festival. I recall that incident with a chilling clarity because it happened the same day, I received news that my own father had died in the village. But take note of this: both attacks occurred on the eve of two big Christian festivals namely: Christmas and Easter. So, what is the motive of the terrorists? Is it just to instill fear in Christian populations? Or it is a loud warning that the terrorists have relapsed into a more horrendous barbarism in the urban centers?
Since Nigeria’s return to civil rule in 1999, violence has become second nature to the country. Cast your eyes over the landscape and there you find a descent of communities, regions and indeed the nation into a lingering state of insecurity with its attendant ills, not the least of which is economic retrogression. Cast your eyes over the country and there you encounter eloquent testimonies of innocent and poor Nigerians who have lost their lives while trying to cope with the harsh economic realities in the country.

During the regime of Olusegun Obasanjo (1999-2007) there was an attack on the Nigerian Army barracks in Kaduna in 2000, which was linked to extremists groups. By comparison , Obasanjo had only two major challenges to contend with namely: the violent activities of local militia groups in the Niger Delta region who were demanding for resource control and the introduction of Sharia law in Zamfara state by Governor Ahmed Sani Yerima. In both cases, it became apparent that Obasanjo himself, a former man of war, was helpless, or so it seemed. But don’t forget that the Nigerian Army heavily deployed its military might on armless civilian populations in Zakibiam and Odi in Benue and Bayelsa states respectively during Obasanjo rule.

We must concede that it was under the regime of Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (2010-2015) that banditry and terrorism became more pervasive in Nigeria. During this time, Boko haram, a terrorist group was responsible for almost all violent activities in the country including bombings, assassinations, abductions especially that of 276 Chibok girls in 2014. Goodluck Jonathan was a simple, shy and smiling president and for that reason it was rumored that some powerful individuals brought into Nigeria bandits and arms in 2015 to destabilize his government and to plunge the country into a civil war if he did not concede defeat in the 2015 General Elections. We are a nation of short memories, so whether these accounts are true or false, the truth remains that Jonathan woefully failed to protect the lives of Nigerian citizens and to rescue the Chibok girls who are in captivity till this day. Left or right, terrorism continued unabated after Jonathan.

Jonathan Goodluck’s successor, Muhammadu Buhari, was also a former man of war like his predecessor Obasanjo. When he came to office, he promised to defeat the terrorist in three months. He gave Nigerians so much hope by moving the entire headquarters of the Nigerian Army to Maiduguri. The idea was that the Nigerian Army could put the Boko Haram terrorist to rout. But it soon became apparent that President Buhari’s speech was nothing but grandstanding since the Nigerian Army could not defeat the terrorist group. On the contrary, Boko Haram and its spin-off Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP) dared the Nigerian state by carrying out brazen attacks on civilians and security agents.

By way of comparison, the spate of attacks by these two groups during the regime of Buhari made that of Jonathan’s regime a child’s play. The ones that quickly come to memory include Kuje Correctional Center in July 2022, the Abuja -Kaduna train attack in March 2022, the St Xavier Catholic Church Owo, Ondo State bombing in June 2022. There were also mass kidnappings including the abduction of 344 schoolboys in Kankara, Katsina State and 110 school girls in Dapchi, Yobe State. Official reports show that over 53, 418 Nigerians lost their lives between May 2015 and October 2022 when Buhari held sway.

Dear reader, do you need any seer to tell you that our lives as citizens are completely worthless? Nigerian citizens will be less than human not to feel neglected, abused and deceived by the political class.
Enter Bola Ahmed Tinubu. Just like his predecessors Bola Ahmed Tinubu vowed to defeat terrorism but here we are again losing our loved ones to terror-related violence on almost a daily basis. Just look at this: when the President was on a visit to London some weeks ago suicide bombers killed 23 people in Maiduguri.

Over 160 people were killed in Woro, Kaiama Local Government Area of Kwara State on February, 3, 2026. In the same February 2026, terrorist killed at least 50 villagers and abducted women and children in Tungun Dutse village of Zamfara state. On March 25, 2026 there was an attack on Maru village in Zamfara state resulting in the death of several villagers. On March 31, 2026, terrorists attacked and killed many people in Chikun and Kajuru villages in Kachia local Government area of Kaduna State. Add these to recent attacks in Riyom, Bokkos all in Plateau state. Add to these also the recent abduction of wedding guests in Kaduna. And this is just a partial list. Just some weeks ago a Nigerian Army truck was ambushed by terrorists and about nine soldiers were killed prompting the President to donate his salary as a birthday gift to the families of soldiers that lost their lives in the line of duty.

Mark this: the lives of both soldiers and civilians is worthless because the leadership revels in so many lies and untruths.
And what has been the response of Government? Nothing new. We are cloyed with same dish: ‘we are on top of the situation, we shall bring the perpetrators to justice’. This has always been the refrain from the Nigerian Government and security agencies. Falsehood. These are old, outworn and familiar cliches. How can we expect to build our country on lies and falsehoods and expect it to stand? But take note of this: from Obasanjo to Tinubu there are certain almost predictable similarities even convergencies among the ruling elite and that is the fact that they do not care about us ordinary citizens.

In contemporary international order, the security of the state is considered important and worth protecting because it is the primary responsibility of the state to provide security for individuals. But it seems clear for now that the Nigerian Government cannot provide security for its citizens. As a matter of fact, in recent times threats to individual security have tended to come from the Nigerian state especially the activities of unscrupulous and unconscionable politicians who sponsor terrorist groups in order to achieve a political objective. This is as much as to say that the Nigerian state is the perpetrator of terrorist attacks. And this is true because the Nigerian Government is incapable of protecting it population, at the same time it lacks the capacity to defeat or make peace with rebel groups. Yes. All power flows from the state, and so do all evils.

And this brings us to the question: how responsible is the Nigerian government? It is clear to anybody with two eyes that the Nigerian government has a huge penchant for a façade of normality. Its claim to be waging war against terrorism is a sham. The recent change of Service Chiefs is also only a ruse and not a solution. We all know that from Angwan Rukuba to Riyom and Bokkos in Plateau State to Yelewata in Benue State to Zamfara and Kebbi and Niger state and Kaduna, we are confronted almost on a daily basis with a reality of citizens burying their loved ones to avoidable acts of terrorism.

At the same time, we see Nigerian Politicians goose-stepping on red carpets of blood at political rallies every day. The major agenda of the political class is to regroup under different political parties to wield political power. You see them singing and dancing at national conventions while innocent citizens are sent to their early graves. The Nigerian government is not willing to provide good leadership, it is only obsessed with victory at the polls in the year 2027.The time has come for Nigerian citizens to devise a way of protecting themselves. The Government cannot protect us anymore. So long as the Government is concerned our lives are worthless and elections are priceless.

I weep for all Nigerian citizens who have lost their lives, to these avoidable attacks, with tears as sovereign as the blood from the heart. May their souls be pillowed in God’s bosom.

Doki, a Professor of Comparative Literature, is a commentator on national issues.

The views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Law & Society Magazine.

In recent weeks, reports of arrests and imprisonment of poor and homeless people in Lagos State, alongside the brutal assault of homeless children in Cross River State, have surfaced yet again. The justification is familiar: they are a nuisance, they constitute a threat to public order, they disturb the peace. But we must pause and ask a simple, piercing question—whose peace?

There is something profoundly unsettling about a nation that begins to fear the visible evidence of its own failure. Because what is being criminalised in Nigeria today is not nuisance, it is poverty, displacement, abandonment and perhaps most disturbingly, it is the audacity of the poor to exist in public view and in spaces they are reserved for the rich.

This incessant hunting of the poor and homeless has continued unabated despite the President’s famous speech, “Let the poor breathe, don’t suffocate them” during his inauguration in 2023.

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When Poverty Becomes A Crime

Across parts of Nigeria, the machinery of the state is increasingly deployed not to protect the vulnerable, but to remove them from sight. Street sweeps, arbitrary arrests, detention of homeless persons—these actions are often framed as urban management or security measures. But beneath that language lies a dangerous shift: the reframing of poverty as deviance.

To be poor and homeless in Nigeria today is to risk being labelled a threat and a criminal. Children without shelter are not treated as individuals in need of care and protection, but as irritants to be cleared away. The irony is both painful and stark. The state, which has failed to provide even the most basic safety nets, now punishes those who have fallen through the cracks it created. This is not governance. It is abdication masquerading as order.

We must be clear: poverty is not a moral failing. Homelessness is not a crime. They are the predictable outcomes of systemic neglect of policies that have prioritised optics over welfare, control over care, and exclusion over inclusion.

What happened in Cross River State, where homeless children were reportedly assaulted under the guise of enforcement, should shake us to our core. Not because it is an isolated incident, but because it is emblematic of a deeper, more insidious violence: the violence of indifference.

When a society begins to see its most vulnerable members as disposable, it has crossed a moral line. The physical assault is only the visible tip of the iceberg. Beneath it lies a broader ecosystem of neglect, lack of access to education, healthcare, shelter, and protection. These children are not on the streets by choice. They are there because families are stretched beyond capacity. After all, systems have failed because opportunities are unevenly distributed and unevenly denied.

Yet, instead of compassion, they are met with force. Instead of protection, they are met with punishment. This is not just a failure of policy; it is a failure to see the humanity in those who do not fit neatly into the state’s vision of order.

Whose Peace, Whose Order?

The language of “public peace” is often invoked to justify these actions. But peace, in this context, appears to mean the absence of visible poverty rather than the presence of justice.

Whose peace is being protected when the poor are rounded up and detained? Whose comfort is being prioritised when children are beaten for sleeping in public spaces? Certainly not the peace of those who go to bed hungry, or those who wake up without a roof over their heads.

True peace is not the silence of the oppressed or the disappearance of discomfort from the sightlines of the privileged. True peace is rooted in dignity, equity, and justice. It is built on systems that ensure no one is left behind, not systems that punish those who are.

Nigeria’s growing inequality makes this contradiction even more glaring. On one hand, there is an increasing concentration of wealth and power. On the other hand, there is deepening poverty, widening precarity, and shrinking opportunity. In such a context, to speak of “public peace” without addressing structural inequality is to engage in a dangerous illusion.

A society cannot police its way to peace. It cannot arrest its way out of inequality. And it certainly cannot beat its most vulnerable into invisibility and call that order.

A Failed System

At the heart of this issue lies a fundamental truth: Nigeria does not have a functional social security system capable of protecting its most vulnerable citizens. There are no comprehensive safety nets for those who lose their livelihoods, no robust housing policies for those displaced, no coordinated support systems for children on the streets.

What exists instead are fragmented interventions, often reactive rather than preventive, and insufficient to meet the scale of need. In the absence of systemic support, individuals are left to fend for themselves in an increasingly unforgiving economic landscape. And when they fail, as many inevitably do, the state steps in not with support, but with sanctions.

This inversion of responsibility is both unjust and unsustainable. A government elected to serve its people cannot absolve itself of its duties by criminalising the consequences of its own failures. It cannot outsource accountability to the streets and then punish those who end up there.

If anything, the presence of homeless individuals in public spaces should be seen as a call to action and a visible indicator of systemic gaps that require urgent attention. To respond with repression is to silence that signal, not to solve the problem.

Let the Poor Breathe

There is a cruelty in denying people not only the means to live with dignity, but even the space to exist. To chase the poor from the streets without offering alternatives is to suffocate them slowly, invisibly, and deliberately.

Let the poor breathe. Let them exist without fear of arrest simply for being. Let children find shelter instead of suffering. Let poverty be addressed as a social and economic issue, not a criminal one.

This requires more than rhetoric. It demands a fundamental rethinking of governance priorities. Investment in affordable housing, social protection systems, child welfare services, and inclusive economic policies is not optional; it is essential. So too is a shift in mindset: from seeing the poor as problems to be managed, to recognising them as citizens deserving of rights and dignity.

There is also a role for society at large. We must resist the normalisation of these actions. We must question policies that prioritise appearance over substance, and we must hold leaders accountable for the systems they build or fail to build.

Ultimately, the measure of any society is not how it treats its most powerful, but how it treats its most vulnerable.

Nigeria stands at a crossroads. It can continue down the path of criminalising poverty, deepening divisions, and eroding its moral foundation. Or it can choose a different path, one that recognises that peace without justice is fragile, and order without compassion is hollow.

A failed system cannot blame the poor for its failures. It cannot wash its hands of responsibility and then point fingers at those it has left behind.

If we truly seek peace, then we must begin by restoring dignity. If we seek order, then we must build systems that work for all. And if we seek a future worth believing in, then we must, at the very least, let the poor breathe.

The views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Law & Society Magazine.

By Abdulrauf Aliyu

In Nigeria, elections are not merely contests of ideas. They are deeply spiritual exercises in distribution. Not distribution of wealth in any structural or policy-driven sense, but the more immediate and culturally resonant act of sharing things that can be touched, cooked, worn, or, in moments of urgency, quietly sold before evening.

It begins quietly. A few bags here, a few wrappers there. Then it gathers momentum. Trucks appear like migrating birds, unloading their cargo of compassion into expectant hands. The atmosphere becomes festive. Music plays. Names are chanted. Photographs are taken with the seriousness of historical documentation, as if future generations will study these moments as turning points in national development.

The items themselves have undergone steady innovation. There was a time when a bar of soap was considered a respectable gesture. Then came spaghetti, slender and symbolic, suggesting both nourishment and modernity. Now, the two-kilogram bag of rice stands as the gold standard of electoral diplomacy. It is large enough to impress, yet small enough to distribute widely.

One almost expects a national honours list dedicated to those who have advanced the science of election-season generosity, complete with medals shaped like cooking pots.

The Science of Stomach Infrastructure

The phrase “stomach infrastructure” has entered the political vocabulary with remarkable ease, as if it were always there, waiting to be discovered. It sounds technical, almost like a line item in a national budget. One imagines committees debating its allocation, experts presenting data, and policymakers nodding gravely while pretending not to understand the arithmetic.

In practice, it is much simpler. It is the recognition that while roads may take years to build, hunger operates on a daily schedule. A citizen may not see a bridge completed within a political term, but he can certainly see a bag of rice emptied within a week, sometimes sooner if relatives visit unexpectedly. The immediacy is persuasive.

Politicians understand this with admirable clarity. Why invest solely in promises that require time, coordination, and the cooperation of multiple institutions when one can also invest in something that produces instant gratitude? It is not an either-or decision, of course. It is simply that one option photographs better and guarantees applause without follow-up questions.

Voters, for their part, are not participants in this exchange by accident. They understand the value of what they receive. The rice is real. The fabric is tangible. The cash, when available, is refreshingly unambiguous. These are not theoretical benefits. They are not subject to bureaucratic delay or committee review.

It is a system built on mutual understanding, even if it leads to outcomes that everyone later claims to regret while standing in longer queues.

A Masterclass in Optimism

Alongside the distribution of goods comes the distribution of optimism. Campaign speeches in Nigeria are exercises in confident forecasting. Security will be restored. The economy will stabilise. Jobs will multiply with the enthusiasm of unpaid interns who never resign.

One cannot help but admire the certainty. It suggests a level of control over events that would impress even the most seasoned historians and perhaps confuse reality itself. If one did not know better, one might assume that governance is a straightforward process, occasionally delayed only by the absence of the right individual with enough conviction.

History, however, has a habit of complicating such narratives. Leaders across time have entered office with similar confidence, only to discover that reality is less cooperative than anticipated. Plans encounter resistance. Policies produce unintended consequences. Timelines stretch like elastic bands under pressure.

Yet this does not diminish the quality of the promises. If anything, it enhances them. After all, a promise that acknowledges difficulty is less exciting than one that assumes it away entirely and replaces it with applause.

The Logistics of Belief

What makes this system particularly effective is not merely the distribution of goods or the articulation of promises. It is the logistics of belief. Elections require a certain suspension of disbelief, a willingness to accept that this time, the outcome will differ significantly from previous iterations, despite familiar faces and familiar speeches.

This belief is not entirely irrational. Each election does, in fact, produce change. New individuals assume office. Policies shift, sometimes subtly, sometimes more visibly. The system evolves, even if not always in the ways initially imagined or advertised on campaign banners.

The challenge lies in the scale of expectation. When promises are expansive and timelines compressed, the gap between expectation and outcome widens into something almost architectural. This gap is then filled with explanations, justifications, and, occasionally, new promises that sound remarkably like the old ones with minor adjustments.

Meanwhile, the rice has been consumed, the fabric has faded, and the cycle prepares to repeat with admirable discipline and coordination.

An Economy of Small Decisions

It is tempting to view this entire process as a grand deception, but that would overlook its more interesting feature. It is sustained not by a single act of manipulation, but by millions of small decisions made by individuals acting within their circumstances and constraints.

A voter accepts a bag of rice because it provides immediate value. A politician distributes it because it yields immediate support. Neither action, taken alone, explains the broader outcome. Together, they create a pattern that persists over time with the reliability of a national tradition.

This is the quiet engine of the system. It does not rely on grand conspiracies or secret meetings. It operates through incentives that are visible to all participants and quietly accepted. Changing it would require altering those incentives, a task that is considerably more complex than delivering another truckload of goods with branded stickers.

A National Diet of Irony

There is, undeniably, a comic element to all of this. A nation of over two hundred million people, rich in resources and ambition, periodically reduces its political discourse to items that can fit into a shopping bag and be consumed before the week ends. It is a scene that invites laughter, if only to manage the alternative.

Yet the humor carries an edge. The same system that produces these moments also shapes governance outcomes in ways that are less amusing. Decisions influenced by short-term exchanges have long-term consequences that do not arrive with music or applause.

It is a bit like paying for a lifetime subscription with a one-time discount voucher. The savings feel immediate. The bill arrives later, usually with interest and no option for refund.

The Final Distribution

As the election approaches, preparations will intensify. More trucks will be loaded. More speeches will be written. More assurances will be delivered with unwavering confidence and carefully rehearsed sincerity.

Citizens will gather, observe, accept, question, and decide. Some will take the rice and vote according to their broader judgment. Others will align their votes with the generosity received. Many will do a combination of both, navigating the situation as best they can, balancing principle with practicality.

In the end, the two-kilogram bag of rice is not just a symbol of electoral strategy. It is a mirror. It reflects a political culture shaped by immediacy, constraint, adaptation, and a certain pragmatic acceptance of how things work, even when everyone knows they could work better.

The views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Law & Society Magazine.

 

Ace Actor, my multi-talented friend, Yemi Sodimu, started a riot with this post some days ago:

“E wa o, dis omo meji meji that we are ‘borning’, se kii se wahala lojo iwaju for us in the south bayi?”

I will explain it in simple terms.

“ Every Yoruba family now favours two children per couple. Are we ready for the trouble ahead in the South?”

Well, if you ask me, I think the consequences have arrived already. At least the first batch has. When last did you find a Yoruba okada rider in Lagos? Some weeks ago, in Mowe, which is Ogun State, a confused Google Map forced me to look for an okada to lead me to my destination. Alas, my Northern Bro didn’t know the address and didn’t speak a word of English. The frustration was a killjoy. By the time I arrived the party venue, I was no longer in party mood. A lot is going to change in the South very soon, very quickly.

If Yemi’s post had been just about family planning and smaller families, it would have been compact enough to be wrapped with a few leaves. But the trouble ahead is not a regional one. It is a national malady. For we have all sinned. Like Chief Adeyemi.

Chief Ramos Adeyemi sits in a house that used to breathe, a house that was once a home filled with laughter, warmth and activities.

These days, it only echoes, emptily.

The man did everything right—at least, everything Nigeria told him was right. He worked hard, made money, built houses, invested strategically. He married one wife and stayed with her until she passed on a year ago. They had only two children, out of choice, not because they ran out of healthy eggs or fertile sperm. They just wanted the number of children they could give the best. Then, he did the ultimate: he exported his children to “better life.”

Tunde is now in London. Sade is in Canada. And God has been kind to them. Between divine favour and level-headed choices, they have conquered accents, mortgages, and winter.

Their widowed father is not doing so well. He now depends on an absent-minded nurse to check his blood pressure, blood sugar and make his meals. These days, he would sit in his large living room, phone in hand, staring at pictures of Tunde in a suit somewhere in London, Sade smiling beside a winter tree in Canada. They looked happy. Successful. Exactly what he had prayed for.

And yet, the house remained stubbornly silent.

Sometimes, when the evening stretched too long, he would step outside and sit under the fading sun. The neighbour’s children would run past, laughing loudly, their noise spilling into his compound like a reminder of something he once had and willingly let go. He had given his children the world but in doing so, he had quietly removed himself from it.

You are shaking your head in pity already. Look around you and take a headcount of people you know who have done this. Maybe you are like Chief Adeyemi, even. Well, he is not alone.

In fact, Adeyemi is Nigeria—rich in assets, poor in presence; full of potential, empty of people. And here is where the story stops being sentimental and starts becoming statistical.

Seriously this is not just about one Yoruba Chief having just two children, shipping them abroad and living lonely later. This is about a country slowly packing its future into suitcases. Let’s put emotions aside for a moment and face the arithmetic of our sad national choices.

In the United States today, there are between 700,000 and 1 million Nigerians—counting both immigrants and their children. In the United Kingdom, over 270,000 Nigerian-born people live and work, with the broader Nigerian community rising to about 300,000 to 350,000 when you include second-generation citizens.

Canada, the new bride of Nigerian migration, has witnessed a surge so dramatic it reads like a population transfer. From modest numbers just a decade ago, it now hosts over 100,000 Nigerians, driven by nearly 100,000 new arrivals between 2020 and 2025 alone.

Across Europe—Italy, Germany, Spain, Ireland—another 300,000 to 500,000 Nigerians have quietly settled.

Put together, the Nigerian diaspora is estimated at two to four million people worldwide. Just four million Nigerians when we have over 200 million people. Why is Funke making it sound like 40 million left Nigeria?

Because this is not just about numbers. It is about who is leaving. It is not about a crowd leaving. It is about the class of those leaving. This is about the exit of capacity, a whole generation of capacity. And then another generation. Do you see why we all should declare national days of mourning for these great losses?

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Doctors are leaving hospitals that already look like waiting rooms for death. Lecturers are leaving universities that now echo with strikes instead of ideas. Tech talents are building billion-dollar solutions—in Toronto, not Yaba. Even artisans—welders, plumbers, nurses—are now boarding flights with the same quiet determination: anywhere but here.

So while the percentage of Nigerians abroad may still be small, the percentage of Nigeria’s functional future that has left is anything but small.

Chief Adeyemi didn’t send all his children away. He sent two very brilliant, exceptionally focused young Nigerians. They most likely won’t return to live or help this ailing, diseased nation. They will give their youth, their best years to another nation.

When children leave and never return, something subtle breaks quietly.

Not immediately. Not loudly. But permanently. The grandchildren of today’s migrants will grow up in Boston, Birmingham, and British Columbia. Nigeria in the minds of our departing children and their children will become a story, a vacation spot.

You cannot build a nation with people who no longer feel it belongs to them.

Yes, we are raising global citizens but we may also be raising stateless patriots, emotionally detached from the soil that raised their parents, a land that needs them.

Then there is the national death of our cultural care system and values.

Chief Adeyemi’s reality is spreading. Elderly parents now live on remittances but starved of presence. Across Nigeria, fathers and mothers are being “maintained” from abroad, bank alerts are replacing hugs and story times.

Now extend that to the national level.

If those trained to heal, build, teach, and lead are abroad, who attends to Nigeria’s daily emergencies? A country cannot be fixed via social media posts and vents.

At some point, somebody must be physically present to fix the leaking roof.

Over the years, we have got used to the phrase ‘brain drain’ and lost sight of the fact that a nation that exports its problem-solvers on a daily basis cannot expect its problems to reduce.

Let’s admit it for what it is: systematic depletion where Nigeria trains and the world gains.

The country that does not have enough to invest in education then watches as that investment is taken abroad not in an exchange program, but for free to strengthen foreign economies. The hospitals in the UK and Canada are staffed, in part, by Nigerian-trained professionals. Silicon Valley startups boast Nigerian engineers.

Meanwhile, back home, every sector is staggering under the weight of absence of or inadequate professionals.

Your grandson raised in Toronto by his Nigerian parents may eat jollof rice, yes—but will think Canadian. He will choose Canada first and have Canadian dream. All Nigerian languages are fading. All our cultures are weakening. Even the Igbo boy does not understand why the Yoruba boy prostrates to greet. Now that both of them are in America, they are both feeding their culture and mother tongues into the shredder. With each generation, Nigeria becomes less of a homeland and more of a heritage footnote. We may be in denial but our nation is dying quietly, disappearing without drama.

Where are your children? Are they all abroad? Do they come back at least once a year? Are you 60 or in your 70s and 80s and all your grandchildren are British, Canadians or even Australians? If our brilliant children are not in APC,PDP or ADC, think deeply, what that means. Your daughter that graduated with a First Class at 20 is abroad. The neighbourhood vulcanizer is the party youth leader. Both the APC and PDP just finished their conventions in Abuja, how many youths were there? I mean real young Nigerians who can actually buy their return tickets to Abuja and pay for Airbnb? Young Nigerians who do not and will not see politics as a job, the ones who have second and third addresses and are willing to make a difference.

Our best brains are abroad, the next set of best brains are in the social media army, angry, depressed and impotently venting. I am sad. We all should be sad. Why? Because we think politics is beneath us but we want good governance. You must first break the egg before you fry the egg.

Of all the looming crises hidden in that Yemi Sodimu’s Facebook post, a future leadership trouble has the most dangerous implication. Tomorrow’s Nigeria will need leaders—people who understand its chaos, its contradictions, its possibilities.

But where are these future leaders today?

In Manchester, writing exams.

In Newcastle as carers in Old People’s Homes.

In Houston, juggling three jobs to pay bills.

In New York, building careers.

In Alberta, raising children who may never return.

Leadership is not just about brilliance from a distance, it is about presence.

As things stand, we risk a future where Nigeria will be governed by those who stayed—not necessarily those best prepared or qualified.

Migration is normal. People will always seek better lives. It is human nature.

But when everything goes so awry at home that an entire generation decides that “better life” cannot be found at home, then home is in trouble.

If every Chief Adeyemi exports his best, who inherits Nigeria?

If every Tunde and Sade builds abroad, who builds here? If two to four million Nigerians abroad represent some of the most skilled and driven, then their absence is not just physical—it is structurally tragic.

Nigeria is under siege of multi-dimensional terrorism on the home front. Ancient towns are emptying out in fear. Gunmen on the rail tracks and highway used to be our major fears. Now they have started attending vigils and Sunday services for bulk harvest of victims for ransom. Job opportunities have shrunk to the size of a sinful third leg caught in a married woman’s lap by the licensed owner.

Our systems are collapsing and we all seem to be agreeing, agreeing that Nigeria’s brightest minds are better used in other countries. It is as if we have given up on both our today and tomorrow.

Like Chief Adeyemi, we may one day sit in a vast, resource-rich nation—full of houses, roads, and possibilities—but strangely empty of people willing to take responsibility for it. Maybe our excuse then will be: “We wanted the best for our children.”

How can a people want the best for their children without wanting the best for themselves, for the whole family, the entire nation?

The tragedy of Nigeria is not that its children are leaving. It is that the nation seems increasingly comfortable letting them go.

The views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Law & Society Magazine.