There are countries that wake you up with birds singing. Nigeria wakes you up with breaking news.
You rub your eyes, switch on your phone and before your morning tea has cooled, your blood pressure has already attended three meetings.
Maybe Nigeria should start awarding medals for emotional endurance. Not national honours—those have become too political. I mean genuine medals. Bronze for surviving one year without relocating. Silver for raising children without losing your sanity. Gold for running a small business for ten years. Platinum for reading the newspapers every morning without developing hypertension.
Every new day arrives carrying a fresh trailer of unbelievable stories.
You begin by saying, “Surely, today will be peaceful.”
Nigeria just smiles that mysterious smile and says, “Sit down first. This country is not for the emotionally fragile, or the lilly-liveredI. It is an endurance competition disguised as a nation. This week alone has been enough to leave even the strongest optimist searching for aspirin mixed with those bottles of orisisi that they sell at motor parks.
How do you explain the news surrounding retired Major-General Rabe Abubakar and his wife?
Kidnapped.
Then the heartbreaking report that he died in the kidnappers’ den.
His body, according to reports, was eventually brought and handed over by a group representing the kidnappers to a group representing the state government . No arrest. No gunshot. Just ‘ Take his body, we kill, you bury.’
While we were still reeling from the shock of that handing-over ceremony, another twist was squeezed into the mix.
His wife was reportedly rescued alive.
Every Nigerian celebrated that rescue.
But beyond the relief, difficult questions are hanging in the air, like stubborn harmattan dust.
How exactly do these criminal gangs operate? How do armed men move victims from one place to another?
How do they feed them?
How do they transport bodies?
How do they negotiate for weeks?
How do they seemingly melt into forests, mountains and villages without leaving enough traces?
Do they suddenly become invisible?
Who sells food and daily provisions to them? Nobody sees them throughout these evil operations? Their bag men just don’t care who dies as long as they make plenty money? What are the critical pieces of intelligence, logistics and community cooperation we are still missing in this unending war against terror and kidnapping?
The scale and persistence of these crimes are totally exhausting.
Read Also: Echoes of Trauma: The loneliness we hide — Do I Still Matter?
One retired general.
Tomorrow, a professor.
Next week, a farmer.
Then a school pupil.
Looks like everybody is within reach now. Nobody should consider himself beyond reach or isn’t that the message these dark souls are passing across?
That itself has become one of Nigeria’s greatest enemies.
Just when your heart is trying to process that tragedy, another headline arrives from Kano.
One and a half billion naira. Mass wedding. It’s like that thing is an annual festival because I wrote about this topic last year. I just may never understand a state government would spend money on mass weddings.
Now, before anybody sharpens their spear, mass weddings have existed for years in parts of northern Nigeria.
Supporters argue they help poor couples marry lawfully, reduce social problems and support vulnerable families. Those are legitimate arguments worthy of discussion.
But Nigerians are also asking another legitimate question.
At a time when governments are battling insecurity, unemployment, schools needing repair, hospitals lacking equipment, and families struggling with inflation, what should be the priority order for public spending? That is the question that refuses to disappear.
Nobody is saying marriage is bad. Marriage is beautiful.
In fact, many Nigerian mothers believe marriage cures everything except malaria. However, public funds always provoke public scrutiny. If government spends billions on something that is unusual, citizens have every democratic right to ask whether that expenditure represents the most urgent need. It is called accountability
Then, just as your head is still calculating one and a half billion naira, another legal drama enters the room.
Five political parties reportedly found themselves deregistered and knocked out of contention by the court. Politics in Nigeria never lacks suspense, very dramatic suspense. It was a gutting judgment. After all caps and T-shirts and billboards have been made and billions spent! Of course the affected parties are left panting and disoriented. Sympathisers are crying foul. Lawyers are speaking Latin and confusing everybody more.
Television analysts are speaking big big English and quoting Socrates. But beyond all the emotions lies another question.
Did those parties comply with the requirements expected of them or not?
Political participation comes with legal obligations, deadlines, documentation, internal democracy, registration rules etc.
If those obligations were ignored, the consequences, however painful, should not surprise the parties that thought the ostrich head buried in the sand meant its exposed big body would be invisible.
On the other hand, whenever judicial decisions drastically alter the political landscape, citizens naturally expect transparency and convincing legal reasoning. In this instance, did the court do what it should have when it ought to have done it?
Read Also: Echoes of Trauma: A nation in survival mode
Justice must not only be done. People should understand why it has been done because confidence in democratic institutions depends heavily on that clarity.
Nigeria has become a country where almost every headline demands an explanation. Sometimes it feels like we are all contestants in a reality television show called Surviving Nigeria.
Episode One.
Fuel.
Episode Two.
Exchange rate.
Episode Three.
Kidnappers.
Episode Four.
Floods.
Episode Five.
Court cases.
Episode Six.
Electricity.
The season finale?
Nobody knows.
Even the scriptwriters appear confused.
The average Nigerian has developed survival skills worthy of military academies. He wakes before dawn, calculates transport fares, prays there will be electricity, worries whether the internet works and now he has to worry and pray about kidnappers, bandits and terrorists.
Yet, somehow, he still laughs that Nigerian laughter that deserves academic research.
It survives where logic should have surrendered. Perhaps that is our greatest national resource. Resilience.
But even resilience has limits.
Citizens should not be required to manufacture hope every morning from empty pockets and frightening headlines.
Hope also needs visible evidence.
When criminals are arrested and successfully prosecuted, hope grows. When terror financiers are handcuffed and stripped of their illicit honour in their five-star estates, hope grows. When government successfully prosecute rescue missions instead of trading our national dignity and integrity for temporary retrieve, hope grows. When the judiciary jails terrorists and deliver judgements that are hard to fault, hope will flourish.
Hope is not produced by speeches alone. It grows from consistent performance.
One danger of becoming accustomed to shocking news is emotional fatigue.
People stop reacting. They develop thick skin. They shrug, sigh at another kidnapping, another political crisis, another explosion.
That numbness is dangerous.
A society should never become so numb that it is comfortable with abnormality because abnormality when entertained long enough begins introducing itself as normal.
That is a temptation we must resist with our national might
Nigeria deserves better than permanent emergency.
She deserves predictable governance.
She deserves secure highways.
She deserves functioning institutions.
She deserves politics driven more by ideas than litigation and decamping .
She deserves leaders whose decisions inspire confidence rather than shameless selfishness. Most importantly, Nigerians deserve peace of mind.
There is a poverty worse than lack of money.
It is the poverty of certainty.
Not knowing whether your loved one will return safely from a journey.
Not knowing whether your business can survive next month.
Not knowing what policy tomorrow morning will bring.
Not knowing whether today’s investment will still make sense next week.
That uncertainty slowly drains the spirit and the Nigerian spirit is damn drained. Perhaps that is why so many Nigerians say the country is exhausting. Not because Nigerians are weak.
Far from it.
The Nigerian spirit remains one of the toughest on earth. Our entrepreneurs build businesses against impossible odds. Our farmers still cultivate despite insecurity.
Our teachers continue teaching despite inadequate resources.
Doctors still save lives.
Journalists still ask difficult questions.
Young people still dream.
Parents still sacrifice.
Pastors still pray.
Imams still pray.
The ordinary Nigerian has refused to surrender.
That is remarkable.
But patriotism should not become an excuse for endless suffering.
Love for one’s country should never require permanent exhaustion.
A good nation does not merely ask its citizens to endure.
It gradually reduces the burdens they carry. It asks and answers basic questions.
How do we secure our communities more effectively?
How do we spend public money more wisely?
How do we strengthen political institutions so that disputes are settled fairly and transparently?
How do we restore confidence that tomorrow can indeed be better than today?
Those questions matter more than social media war.
Because while we are arguing online, ordinary Nigerians are simply asking for something beautifully simple, the low hanging fruits.
To sleep without fear.
To travel without terror.
To work without despair.
To marry without poverty.
To vote with confidence.
To live with dignity.
Surely, that is not asking too much.
This exhausting and exhausted nation needs honest rescuing, not with slogans and propaganda but with courageous leadership, accountable institutions, effective security, respect for the rule of law, and citizens who refuse to stop demanding a country that works.
For one day, perhaps sooner than many expect, we deserve to wake up, read the headlines, smile—and discover that, for once, Nigeria has decided to give us a peaceful morning.
The views expressed by contributors are strictly personal and not of Law & Society Magazine.
