A nation in tears: Celebrating while its future are in chains. By Lai Gidado
A nation in tears: Celebrating while its future are in chains
By Lai Gidado
At about 2 a.m. on Tuesday, sleep fled my eyes as I wrestled with grim thoughts of the Oriire Local Government schoolchildren abduction and the horrifying killing of a mathematics teacher who was beheaded.
Without realising, I began to mutter aloud, forgetting it was the middle of the night and others were asleep. I suddenly shouted, “Oh my goodness…”
My people rushed to my room.
“Alhaji, Daddy, Sir, are you okay?” they asked anxiously, thinking something was wrong.
I could not hold back my emotions. I wept for the children. I wept for their parents. I imagined the agony of a mother waiting for her three-year-old toddler to return home, and a father desperately calling kidnappers, pleading for the release of his wife and children.
My wife, equally distressed, said she had also been unable to sleep.
“I have been thinking about those little children and their mothers,” she said. “If their mothers cannot sleep, why should I sleep?”
On Children’s Day, I struggle with the idea of celebration. I feel ashamed to call myself part of a society that is marking a festive occasion while nursery and primary school pupils have been kidnapped and taken into unknown forests, without shelter, without safety, without food.
Are we not being insensitive when we say we are celebrating Children’s Day under such circumstances?
As a Muslim, after slaughtering my ram, I packed the meat into the freezer and returned to my prayer mat. I had completely forgotten I invited some friends, as is my usual yearly practice, to join me in celebration.
Some of them came later. I apologized and offered them fresh meat, explaining that I was not in the mood to celebrate because innocent children were still in the forest with kidnappers.
Later, I overheard someone saying, “Ko sowo lowo Alhaji ni”—meaning the Alhaji has no money to entertain guests.
But I ask: have we lost our sense of humanity?
Leadership and National Priorities
Today, we also mark anniversaries and political milestones, governorship achievements, presidential celebrations, and other public festivities.
But what exactly are we celebrating? Our inability to curb insecurity? Our failure to stop kidnapping? God help us.
To our leaders, school owners, and the political class: it is an international embarrassment to see Nigerians celebrating Children’s Day at a time when we should be in sober reflection.
Even more troubling is the continuation of political campaigns, primaries, and victory celebrations while children remain in captivity.
Our leaders must rethink how they value human life. Our children represent our future, yet that future is being held hostage in forests while those in authority appear indifferent. Have we lost our soul?
We must also ask: why have we refused to fully deploy modern technology in the fight against insecurity?
Why can’t we use drones, surveillance systems, and intelligence tools more effectively to combat banditry and kidnapping? Smaller nations have reported significant success using technology to reduce insurgency and crime.
Security should no longer be treated with outdated methods in a rapidly advancing world.
Our youths need urgent reorientation about life, dignity, and legitimate work. It is deeply disturbing that kidnapping and banditry are gradually being normalised as a form of “business.”
Recent arrests in parts of southern Nigeria revealed young men between the ages of 20 and 25 involved in kidnapping activities, cutting across different ethnic backgrounds.
This is no longer a tribal issue, it is a national moral crisis.
We are busy talking about the 2027 elections while many citizens cannot sleep peacefully in their homes.
We are debating politics while farmers can no longer go to their farms. We are planning campaigns while children cannot safely go to school.
Our leaders should, for once, send their aides out to feel the pulse of ordinary Nigerians if they are unaware of what is truly happening.
God help us.
God help Nigeria.
— Lai Gidado
29th May, 2026
