In a land soaked with its own tears, the silence of a nation grows louder.
Benue State is bleeding — again. Families are being butchered in their sleep, villages razed, children orphaned. The cries from the heart of Nigeria echo daily, but the rest of the country has turned away. We are too busy dissecting foreign affairs, holding panel discussions about Iran, quoting geopolitics, and tweeting armchair analyses of the Middle East.
Meanwhile, our people are dying at home.
What a country.
It is a tragic irony that in a country with such high poverty and insecurity rates, the trending topics are often about distant wars, foreign presidents, and international alliances — while our own citizens are left to fend for themselves against killers in the night. What does it say about us that we know more about Tehran’s diplomacy than the IDP crisis in Makurdi or Gwer West?
This is not diplomacy. This is distraction.
Leadership at every level has failed. Where is the federal government’s emergency response? Where are the military reinforcements? Where are the televised condemnations and solemn visits? If this were Abuja or Lagos, the reaction would be different. But Benue? Apparently, its suffering has become routine. Tolerated. Normalized.
We must not accept this.
The international obsession must not come at the cost of domestic accountability. Our priorities are skewed. Our conversations, misaligned. We do not need more foreign policy experts — we need conscience. We need action. We need leaders who will secure lives in Otukpo, not just tweet solidarity with Gaza or Iran.
Until Nigerian lives begin to matter in Nigeria, we will continue to spiral. A country that cannot protect its citizens at home has no moral authority to speak on crises abroad.
This is not just shameful. It is tragic.
