Banner Online News

Nigeria is bleeding and those entrusted with stopping the hemorrhage are busy rehearsing for the next election.

The gruesome killing of no fewer than 40 innocent Nigerians in Gari Ya Waye community, Angwan Rukuba, Jos, Plateau State, on the sacred night of Palm Sunday, March 29, 2026, is not just another tragic headline. It is an indictment, loud, damning, and impossible to ignore, of a state that has abdicated its most fundamental responsibility: the protection of life. Just a week earlier, there was an unconscionable and wanton burning of houses in Mararaba, a suburb of Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria by persons believed to be Fulani.

Palm Sunday, a day that symbolizes peace, sacrifice, and hope in the Christian faith, was desecrated with blood. Families were slaughtered. Communities shattered. Survivors left to pick up the pieces of a life violently torn apart. And as the smoke rose from the ruins, so too did the now-familiar question: where is the Nigerian government?

Even voices from beyond our borders have begun to echo the outrage. American evangelist Alex Barbir, in a moment of raw frustration, called out President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, asking pointedly: “Where are you?” It is a question millions of Nigerians are asking, not out of political malice, but out of existential fear. Because the truth is this: Nigerians are no longer safe.

A NATION UNDER SIEGE, A LEADERSHIP IN DENIAL

What we are witnessing is no longer sporadic insecurity. It is a sustained, systemic collapse of national security. From the Middle Belt to the North-West and North East, entire communities live under the shadow of death. Farmers cannot farm. Worshippers cannot worship. Travelers cannot travel.

And yet, the official narrative remains a tired script of “progress,” “neutralized threats,” and “renewed hope.”

Hope? For whom?

Certainly not for the widows of Jos. Not for the orphans created in one night of terror. Not for the countless Nigerians who go to bed each night unsure if they will wake up to another day, or to the sound of gunfire.

The administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has, for three years, presided over a security architecture that is not just overstretched, but fundamentally broken. What was once described as a crisis has now metastasized into a grotesque national norm.

This is not merely a failure of strategy. It is a failure of will. A failure of empathy. A failure of leadership.

POLITICS OVER PEOPLE: THE OBSESSION WITH 2027

Even more disturbing is the grotesque disconnect between the suffering of the people and the priorities of those in power. While blood flows in Plateau, Benue, Zamfara, and beyond, the political class is consumed, not with solutions, but with permutations for 2027. Billions are quietly being funneled into political machinery, alliances, and second-term calculations. This is not governance. It is abandonment.

What makes this betrayal even more galling is that the current mandate has not expired. Nigerians voted for security, for stability, for leadership, not for a perpetual campaign season while the country burns.

The ruling party, All Progressives Congress, must answer a simple question: what exactly has been “renewed” in the much-touted “Renewed Hope”? Because on the ground, what Nigerians see is renewed fear. Renewed killings. Renewed helplessness.

THE OPEN GRAZING SCANDAL AND A STATE THAT REFUSES TO ACT

One of the clearest symbols of this government’s paralysis is its handling, or lack thereof, of the farmer-herder crisis.

Why are anti-open grazing laws not being enforced? Why do armed herders continue to operate with such audacity, occupying farmlands, displacing communities, and terrorizing rural populations while governments displace nonchalance?

These are not rhetorical questions. They are urgent demands for accountability. A government that cannot enforce its own laws is not governing, it is merely existing. And in that vacuum of authority, violence thrives.

THE DANGEROUS MYTH OF “TECHNICAL DEFEAT”

For years, Nigerians have been told that insurgents have been “technically defeated.” Yet, the reality tells a different, blood-soaked story.

Kidnappings have resurged. Mass killings continue unabated. Entire regions have become killing fields. This is not defeat, it is denial.

The refusal to properly classify and confront these armed groups as terrorists, the hesitation wrapped in political correctness, and the absence of decisive, intelligence-driven action have all combined to embolden perpetrators and endanger citizens. Nigeria is, in effect, surrendering portions of its sovereignty to non-state actors.

Nigerians are not asking for miracles. They are asking for competence. Solutions exist. They have been articulated repeatedly:

• A decentralized policing system that empowers states and local communities.
• A definitive end to open grazing through enforceable ranching policies.
• Investment in intelligence, surveillance, and modern security technology.
• A security architecture driven by data and accountability, not patronage.

These are not radical ideas. They are basic requirements of a functioning state.

2027: A REFERENDUM ON SURVIVAL

As Nigeria inches toward 2027, one truth is becoming inescapable: this election will not just be about politics. It will be about survival.

For many Nigerians, the question is no longer which party to support, but whether the current trajectory guarantees their safety. A government that cannot protect its citizens forfeits its moral right to govern them.

The massacre in Jos must not become just another statistic. It must be a turning point. Because if this continues; if the killings persist, if the silence from leadership remains, if governance continues to take a backseat to politics, then history will remember this era not just as a time of insecurity, but as a time of unforgivable negligence.

Nigeria is not at war, yet Nigerians are dying as though it is. And until those in power act with urgency, sincerity, and resolve, the blood of the innocent will remain a stain on the conscience of the nation.

Enough is enough.