₦airaland Forum

When the Police Chase Influencers but Can’t Enter the Bush: Nigeria’s Upside-Down Priorities
By Samteez Temitope

It’s only in Nigeria that a social media influencer can get a swift knock on the door from the police for exposing scammers or “kidnappers” online, yet those same police cannot mobilize to go inside the bush and rescue actual kidnapped victims still crying for help.

This is not an exaggeration. It is our painful reality in 2025.

In the past few years, we have watched cybercrime units and rapid-response teams swing into action within hours when an influencer “crosses the line” — maybe they called out a fraudster too loudly, shared a video that embarrassed someone connected, or simply offended the wrong ego. Phone calls are made, statements are taken, and sometimes handcuffs appear before the sun sets.

Yet in Zamfara, Kaduna, Katsina, Niger, Kogi, Kwara, and parts of the North-Central, heavily armed bandits operate from forests everyone knows, collect ransoms in broad daylight, and hold hundreds of Nigerians — schoolchildren, farmers, travellers — in camps that have practically become permanent settlements of sorrow. The police and military often respond with the same painful line: “We don’t have the capacity to go in,” “It’s too risky,” or worst of all, silence.

The irony burns.

The state that can track an IP address in Lagos within minutes suddenly becomes helpless when the coordinates point to a forest in Birnin Gwari. The same government that warns citizens “don’t take laws into your hands” is nowhere to be found when citizens are actually dying in the hands of criminals.

We are left asking:

- Why is the system lightning-fast against soft targets but paralyzed against real terrorists?
- Why do we have more energy to police tweets than to rescue mothers, fathers, and children from the bush?
- When did online “image laundering” become a bigger priority than human lives?

This is not about blaming the average police officer who is underpaid, underequipped, and afraid — many of them are victims of the same broken system. This is about leadership and priorities. When the political will exists, we see results. We saw it during #EndSARS investigations. We saw it when certain high-profile fraud cases became national embarrassments. Energy was found.

But for the thousands still in captivity right now — for the families selling land and borrowing at 50% interest to pay ransom — that energy is missing.

Until rescuing kidnapped Nigerians becomes as urgent as arresting someone for a viral video, nothing will change.

We are tired of the hypocrisy.
We are tired of the selective courage.
We are tired of a country that acts strong only when it’s convenient and weak when it actually matters.

They will kidnap and ask for ransom soon.
Nigeria is unpredictable

THE TEARS OF JAKANDE IN 1963 AND THE SILENCE OF THE SOUTHEAST IN 2025
A Story Nigeria Must Not Repeat[b][/b]

In September 1963, inside the Lagos High Court, Justice Sowemimo sentenced Chief Obafemi Awolowo to 10 years and Lateef Jakande to 3 years for “treasonable felony”.
Jakande broke down in tears, not for himself, but for his leader.
Awolowo walked up to him and asked, “Why are you crying for only me?”
Jakande replied:
“I don’t mind going to jail and even adding your own years to mine. My pain is this: why is the only Premier in Nigeria that will go to jail the Premier of my own Region?”

Awolowo wiped his tears and said:
“Dry your tears, my brother. Sometimes God keeps His best soldiers away from the battlefield when the real war is about to start…”

Four years later, in 1967, Nigeria was on the verge of total collapse.
Gowon himself confessed:
“I needed Chief Awolowo more than I needed the Nigerian Army.”
Ojukwu, the Biafran leader, later said with pain in his heart:
“Chief Awolowo is the best President Nigeria never had.”

Why?
Because the moment Awolowo endorsed “To keep Nigeria one”, the Yoruba nation followed him, and the country did not break into pieces.

Fast forward to 2025.
Another regional titan, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, has just been sentenced to life imprisonment on 20th November 2025.
He is now locked up in faraway Sokoto, over 700 km from his lawyers, his family, and the Court of Appeal.
His only “crime”? Speaking for a people who feel crushed and forgotten.

History is repeating itself, but in reverse.
When Awolowo was jailed, they sent him to Calabar in the East — a neutral zone.
When Kanu is jailed, they send him to Sokoto — the heart of the North, the very place many of his followers fear the most.

Awolowo’s jail term saved Nigeria.
Will Kanu’s life sentence save Nigeria… or finally break it?

Jakande cried in 1963 because he saw injustice targeted at his own region.
Today, many in the Southeast are asking the same question Jakande asked 62 years ago:
“Why is it always our own son?”

The same Nigeria that needed Awolowo yesterday is the same Nigeria that needs peace in the Southeast today.
Jailing the voice does not kill the grievance.
Awolowo was released and he became the pillar that held Nigeria together.
Kanu can still play that role — if wisdom prevails.

To the Yoruba progressive family:
Remember how Gowon begged Awolowo.
Remember how Murtala Muhammed personally drove Awolowo home from the airport and called it “a privilege”.
That same spirit of statesmanship is needed today.

To our Igbo brothers and sisters:
Your pain is valid. Your anger is understood.
But do not let anyone turn that pain into the final hammer that breaks Nigeria.

To President Bola Tinubu, a true son of Awo:
The broom you carry is the same broom that swept from the palm tree Awo planted.
Awo’s greatest weapon was not war; it was wisdom and reconciliation.
Bring Nnamdi Kanu closer. Listen. Negotiate. Release if possible.
One phone call from you can do what one million soldiers cannot do.

Because if Nigeria breaks tomorrow, nobody will remember who was right.
They will only remember who failed to stop it.

May Èdùmàrè give our leaders the wisdom of 1966.
May we never need another Jakande to cry in court again.

UP AWO FOREVER!
FREE NNAMDI KANU — FOR THE SAKE OF NIGERIA!

Àṣẹ!

Samteez Temitope
_A concerned Nigerian_

A fire ball that engulfed the plane and the surrounding area and this man survived without much evidence of smoke, fire etc on his white tee-shirt. Omo, a full tank of fuel?.
I don't believe he was on the plane but if he is then it is a miracle.

The Abímbólá happen to be from my village in Kogi state.
Black Friday 😭😭😭😭😭😭

What human invented not God

Iseoluwani:
Humans

Even God was vexed he created man

Better.

Nothing wey we no go see for this Nigeria. Laslas 9ja go better