There is a kind of heartbreak that only a Nigerian understands. The kind that comes when you realise that strangers thousands of miles away are more worried about your safety than the people elected to protect you. This week the United States Congress sat down to discuss the rising wave of insecurity in Nigeria. They spoke about mass kidnappings, killings, terror cells expanding like weeds and a government that appears overwhelmed. Meanwhile back home our own Senate was clapping and smiling and posing for pictures as politicians defected to the ruling party. A whole red chamber and their biggest national priority was to celebrate decampees. It is almost poetic in its absurdity.
How did we get here. How did a country with this much hurt and this much loss produce leaders who behave as if they live in another universe. Every day Nigerians are picked like fruits from their homes. Farmers are slaughtered on their farms. Students on their way to school are snatched without mercy. Families are running crowdfunding campaigns for ransom. Entire communities now sleep with one eye open. Yet the people who swore an oath to defend the republic have turned the National Assembly into a reception hall for party conversions.
There is a sickness in a country when the pain of the people does not echo inside its parliament. Something is deeply wrong when the tears of parents whose daughters have been kidnapped do not shake a single table in Abuja. Instead we get political choreography. Smiling faces. Ceremonial handshakes. A Senate President announcing new party members with the same energy he should have used to demand answers on security failures. When you ask what exactly the priorities of this government are, the answer hits you like cold water. Power first. Party first. People last.
If a foreign legislature can sit down and debate our insecurity, why can our own lawmakers not pause their political games for one moment to face the crisis swallowing the country. If outsiders can see the red flags, how are the insiders this blind. At what point does leadership become self parody. How do you ignore blood on the land and choose to celebrate political defections. How do you clap when Nigerians are crying.
Every lawmaker who participated in that welcome ceremony should be asked one simple question. When was the last time you summoned the security chiefs with urgency and demanded timelines and results. When last did you walk into a grieving community to hear their stories and feel their fear. When last did you push a motion that puts human lives above party arithmetic. If the answer is silence then our Senate is not just failing. It is mocking us.
This is not opposition politics. It is not tribal sentiment. It is not emotional writing. It is the simple truth. Nigeria is bleeding. Nigeria is hurting. Nigeria is tired. And the people who should be the first responders have become spectators in the national tragedy. A serious government does not clap while terrorists terrorise. A serious parliament does not celebrate defections while families are searching for missing children. The message it sends is loud. You are on your own.
One day history will ask them what they were doing while the country burned. And the answer will be shameful. They were dancing. They were smiling. They were counting party members like it was a festival. They were busy with politics when they should have been busy with survival.
Nigeria deserves a Senate that feels the heartbeat of its people. Not a gathering that behaves like an extension of a party secretariat. Not a chamber that values defections more than human lives. The world is watching. The citizens are watching. And the verdict will not be kind.
Because when the house is on fire and your leaders are dancing, it means one thing. You do not have leaders. You only have politicians. And politicians do not save nations. Leaders do.
Stephanie Shaakaa
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