By Emeka Alex Duru
On Wednesday, May 27, the 2026 edition of the Nigerian Children’s Day was marked across the country. The celebration was in continuation of the annual ritual associated with the event since it started in 1964. The occasion was conventionally headlined with parades, march pasts, fanfare by the excited children, while lofty speeches were delivered by government officials and other stakeholders on how to improve their welfare and protection. The event has over the years, been used to draw attention to issues that affect Nigerian children, including the protection of their rights.
Paradoxically, the theme for this year’s celebration, was “Future Now: Promoting Inclusion for Every Nigerian Child”, which pledged to ensure that no Nigerian child is left behind in development regardless of age, ability or disability, socioeconomic background, religion, ethnicity or geographical location. By stroke of fate, the celebration coincided with President Bola Tinubu’s declaration of 2026 as the “Year of Families and Social Development”. But that, ironically, is where the flowery speeches, cosmetic declarations and rootless proclamations end. Every other thing is a farce; an empty ritual that lacks in essence and substance. In street lingo, it can readily be dismissed as “all na wash”, symbolising sound without circumstance.
While the government lied at ensuring the future and promoting inclusion for every Nigerian child, not less than 45 students and teachers abducted from Baptist Nursery and Primary School, Yawota; Community Grammar School and L.A. Primary School in Esiele, Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State on May 15, were held hostage, tormented and dehumanised by their captors. The hapless kids would have spent over three weeks inside the forest subjected to most harrowing of abuses and molestations. One of the kidnapped teachers, Michael Oyedokun, was beheaded by the bandits inside the bush.
At the time the kids in Oyo were seized, Boko Haram terrorists also attacked Mussa Primary and Junior Secondary School in Askira/Uba Local Government Area, in Borno State, and abducted 42 students. Their fate remains unknown.
Few days ago, Wednesday, June 2, gunmen abducted seven students of the Federal Polytechnic, Kaura Namoda, Zamfara State. This is not the first time Zamfara would come under stress caused by kidnappers. Between June 2025 and May 2026, at least 270 people were recorded to have been abducted in the State, going by documented incidents.
From Kwara came the report that five worshippers abducted during an attack on ECWA Church in Omugo, Oro Ago District of Ifelodun Local Government Area of the State, have died in captivity. The church’s minister, Rev. Timothy Omole, made the gruesome disclosure in a message to the congregation’s WhatsApp platform. The victims were among eight worshippers kidnapped when armed men invaded the church during a Sunday service on March 22, 2026. Among those killed was the pastor’s wife, Mrs. Rachael Oluwaremilekun Omole.
These are snippets of negative stories and ugly developments that daily assail Nigerians, while the leaders engage in insufferable trivialities and inanities to secure return to their positions in the obvious charade that will go for 2027 elections. Chapter Two, Section 14 (b) of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria (as amended) is explicit that “the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government”. The interpretation is that welfare of Nigerians should be the priority of the government. But that is not the situation. The leaders at all levels are rather, completely detached from what the electorate are going through. They seem to derive joy from the pains Nigerians are experiencing, hence playing the fiddle while the country burns. Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, are thus, right in their book, Why Nations Fail”, that the most common reason why nations fail today is because they are afflicted with exploitative leadership and extractive institutions. That is the problem with today’s Nigeria.
It can only take a leadership that has decidedly deadened its conscience to carry on as if all is well while its school kids – the very representation of its future leadership – are holed up in reptile and wild animal-infested dungeon, taunted and intimidated by blood-sucking demons mildly referred to as bandits. We may of course argue that the current regime of insecurity confronting the country did not start with the present Bola Tinubu administration. But what is astounding is the rate at which the menace is festering and the lethargy of the government to rise to the occasion. Truth be told, at no time in Nigeria’s recent history had the nation come to this piteous point of faceless goons holding the citizens to ransom while the government lacks the will and guts to deal with them decisively.
Ironically, events had not reached this worrisome dimension when Tinubu, then in opposition, through his official Twitter handle, on November 6, 2014, urged the then President Goodluck Jonathan to resign. In the tweet Tinubu stated; “Why should any part of this country be under occupation? In any civilised country, Jonathan should resign”. Tinubu had earlier on April 14, 2014, tweeted “The festering Boko Haram attacks on the North East and massacre of innocent citizens is concrete proof that Nigeria has no government”.
Nigeria, currently under Tinubu, is in a more disastrous bend, with insecurity and hardship boxing the citizens to a corner. With the turn of events, Tinubu’s insinuation of non-governance under Jonathan pales to nothing in comparison with the utter state of anarchy his administration has wrought on Nigerians.
The situation cannot continue as it is. The government owes Nigerians the duty of protection and ensuring their welfare. It is not enough for the President and the governors to make broadcasts and roll out messages in sympathy with the people on occasions as these. Governance goes beyond the tokenism of televised and publicized visits to the families and communities of the kidnapped school children or extending handouts to them, if ever done. Leadership is a serious business and about being in the shoes of the citizens. When the people explicitly or tacitly surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority of the state, it is in exchange for protection of their remaining rights or maintenance of the social order. That is the summary of social contract, as propounded by 17th and 18th Century English and Greek philosophers. Unfortunately, successive Nigerian leaders do not abide by this creed.
Leadership for contemporary of the Nigerian public officials, is seen as a right to appropriate the common wealth, corner the resources of the state for their families and cronies, while the people suffer. This explains the shameful inaction by the government in rescuing the abducted Oyo, Borno, Zamfara students from the kidnappers’ dens. The fact however remains that any day or hour the kids spend in the forests, is a reflection of the corporate captivity of the Nigerian state, the assault on its sovereignty and degradation of its nationhood.
Emeka Alex Duru, Ph.D., is the Editor, TheNiche Newspapers, Lagos. (08054103327, nwaukpala@yahoo.com)