If our condition on earth determines our fate in the next world, the Nigerian poor are very unfortunate. If living in misery in this world means a continuation of that misery in the hereafter, then the majority of Nigerians will go to Hell — and that will be a double tragedy. The good news is that one’s deeds and actions, not one’s condition, determine one’s afterlife — Hell or Paradise. But the truth is: Nigeria is hellish.
It is not the heat that makes it hellish. It is not lack of social amenities, not joblessness, not even hunger that makes the country hellish. What makes it hellish is the widespread insecurity promoted by agents of death who are determined to leave no one untouched — except, perhaps, those in the corridors of power.
People live in fear, not transient fear but fear with no end in sight. But because we are resilient and pretend to be religious, we can only pray that the fear is not permanent. A people who live in fear cannot be successful. Nigerians, under Tinubu, are not thinking of success — that is wishful thinking. They are thinking of safety. When we are safe, we can begin to talk about business, investment, farming.
Farmers are off their farms, not because God refuses to send the rain, not because the land has stopped being fertile, not because the seeds have stopped germinating. But because the government has ceded a large swath of Nigerian territory to bandits who must be paid tax beyond the value of what subsistence farmers, who only farm to feed, can harvest.
Many of those who lived in comfort in yesteryear initially thought they could struggle to maintain it. Some pretended to be comfortable but later realized the poverty in the land is so overwhelming that pretence is impossible. One must acknowledge: we are poor. We are in poverty with no escape route. Only the de jure government and the de facto government — the bandits — live in comfort and opulence. They live large, not because they are diligent and blessed but because they mercilessly milk the masses and are accursed.
Yes! Anyone who has a hand in this insecurity that is about to consume all of us is accursed. They catapult civilized city dwellers into jungles. They herd innocent Nigerians into forests, not the way cattle are herded but in a ruthless manner that would move cattle — whose very nature is to be herded — to tears. We see how cattle are herded, with dignity. Those of us destined to be Nigerians have no scintilla of dignity, whether in government controlled territory or in the custody of bandits. We have seen it, we have heard it, we have read it, it has been narrated to us: how bandits treat the innocent in a manner hunters would never treat their game.
Girls, ladies, women are serially raped. Old women do not escape these rapists. Wives are raped in the presence of their husbands. So are mothers raped in the presence of their sons and daughters. Men in some communities in the North must abandon their homes at night only to return after dawn so that bandits can rape their wives with their consent in exchange for protection — in a country where the government claims it exists. As if this is not enough, this atrocious act of rape in the bush is now posted online for the whole world to watch. Yet the President, who should resign with an unreserved apology and live in eternal regret for failing to protect Nigerians, is seeking a second term in office. So are the governors.
How can anyone, not deprived of sanity, come out to campaign for these “Eaters of the Living”? That is the title of an award-winning book, a collection of poetry by Professor Musa Idris Okpanachi — winner of the 2008 ANA Cadbury Poetry Prize, and one of the books shortlisted for the Nigeria Prize for Literature in 2009.
Where is our humanity? Where is our sanity? Where is our sense of shame? Nigerians in kidnappers’ dens all over the country are not there because they are sinners and we are not. We are not, in any way, better than them. It is only that they are more unfortunate than us.
Read the history of slavery and how enslaved Africans were maltreated in Europe and America while working on plantations. You will realize it is better to be a slave than to be a victim of these ruthless, stone-hearted kidnappers. The dehumanization is terrible and indescribable, except by courageous, freed victims. Not all freed or escaped victims, especially females, have the courage to narrate the horrifying, nasty experience.
One Aisha, reported in _Daily Trust_ yesterday, Thursday, March 18, 2026, is one of the few escaped victims who managed to narrate her experience. She was abducted along with other people, three of whom were her children. She recounted her nightmarish experience that spanned six months in a kidnappers’ den. While in captivity, aside from deprivation, thirst, hunger, severe beating, and illness, her assigned duty was to bury the dead victims.
Day and night meant nothing to her. After burying dead victims, the number of which she had probably lost count, she started burying her own children, including her infant son. Let me sadly quote Aisha’s words: “My baby was sleeping beside my daughter when he died. Bandits wanted to feed his remains to their dogs, but I pleaded with them to allow me to bury him. They threw a spade at me and I buried my son myself.”
Someone like Aisha does not need any biblical or Qur’anic quote to know there is hell. She has already experienced it in Nigeria under the Emilokan regime. Don’t get me wrong. It is not because Aisha is Hausa from Zamfara. Yoruba people in the Southwest are also feeling the heat from the Emilokan regime.
The Oyo pupils, after a month, are still in captivity. Even though what is experienced in Yoruba land today is a tip of the iceberg compared to what the North is going through, the fact is: insecurity is insecurity, and every responsible government must not only be disturbed but must act to bring it to an end.
Aisha escaped, but only after burying her three children. Can Aisha ever be normal again? We pray God gives her the strength to be normal and overcome the trauma. But many, after freedom from kidnappers’ dens, are not normal. We read about a lady who narrated how victims were used as sex slaves, not playthings.
Girls, ladies, women, and old women are shared among bandits for forced sexual service. Some bandits have two, three, four… sex slaves in their custody. After millions of naira were paid to ransom this lady, she later committed suicide at home — not in the kidnappers’ den — because she could not cope with the trauma after being released. In her case, her family lost her, lost their money, and lost trust in a government that should never be trusted in the first place.
Given this hellish experience recounted by victims above, we still have among us those who think government should negotiate with these bandits. We still have those who, due to ethnic solidarity — whatever that means — think these eaters of the living deserve amnesty because Niger Delta militants were given amnesty. Where is our thinking cap? Where is our humanity?
We still have in our midst those who argue that these criminal bandits are on an abduction and killing spree in retaliation for years of being abandoned by government. For this reason, government should reach out to them, get on its knees and beg them. What kind of mental faculty produces this thinking? Who has the government not abandoned for many years? For many years, Nigerians who do not belong to the ruling class have been left to fend for themselves.
I must confess, I am tired of listening to this nonsense — the nonsense of trying to justify and rationalize the irrationality and atrocities committed by these bandits.
We cannot continue to live in hell on earth. It is high time the government did the needful before the masses are pushed to the wall to do the dreadful. May God help Nigeria, as they irresponsibly say only God can solve insecurity problems in Nigeria.
Abdulkadir Salaudeen
salahuddeenabdulkadir@gmail.com
