by Mohammed Bello Doka
14 June, 2026.
Something must kill a man. In Nigeria today, you either die of hunger, be killed by bandits, be eliminated by sponsored political rivals, or fall to a trigger-happy police officer. There is no safe passage. There is no neutral ground. You either speak or keep quiet, and either way, the grave awaits. So I appreciate every single person who has taken the time to warn me about my safety. I hear you. But let me remind you of what we have all witnessed. The late Emir of Gobir spoke, and he was killed. Mallam Elrufai spoke, and today he sits in jail. Dadiyata spoke, and he was killed. General Rabe refused to speak, yet bandits still found and killed him. Harira was killed even though if she had spoken, no one would have listened. She never even had the voice to speak. Mallam Jafar Adam spoke. Mallam Albani Zaria spoke. They were all killed. School children were abducted, and some were killed before they even understood what the world was all about. You speak, you die. You keep quiet, you die. I have made my choice. I choose to speak.
This is not a comfortable decision. It is not one made lightly. But when the evidence piles so high that it blocks out the sun, silence becomes a form of complicity. And I refuse to be complicit in the destruction of my own homeland. The North, or Arewa as we call it with pride, is bleeding. It has been bleeding for years. But what is most disturbing is not the blood itself. It is who is holding the knife and who is pretending not to see.
Let us begin with the facts, the verifiable and undeniable facts about insecurity in Northern Nigeria. According to data released by the Nigeria Security Tracker and corroborated by reports from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, between 2021 and 2025, over thirty-five thousand people lost their lives to banditry, terrorism, and communal violence across the nineteen northern states. In 2024 alone, the Nigerian military recorded over 1,200 kidnap incidents in the North-West geopolitical zone, with Zamfara, Katsina, and Kaduna states accounting for the highest numbers. The Global Terrorism Index consistently ranks Nigeria among the most terrorized nations on earth, with Borno, Yobe, and Adamawa bearing the heaviest burden of Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province insurgency. Between May 15 and 17, 2026, gunmen targeted three schools in Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State, kidnapping thirty-nine students and seven teachers. At the same time, in Borno State, armed groups struck schools in Mussa, Askira-Uba Local Government Area, abducting forty-two pupils. These are not isolated tragedies. They are a pattern. They are a system.
The cost of this insecurity is not measured only in lives lost. It is measured in the billions of naira paid as ransom. It is measured in the hundreds of thousands of children who have not seen a classroom in years. It is measured in the farmers who cannot reach their fields and the traders who cannot move their goods. The World Bank has estimated that banditry and insurgency have cost northern Nigeria over fifteen billion dollars in economic output since 2015. That is not a statistic. That is the future of an entire generation stolen and sold for parts.
So what does our political class care about? They care about power in 2027 and they care about security votes. They do not care about you. They do not care about me. They care about the billions of naira allocated to security that vanish into private accounts. They care about the machinery of re-election. And they have the audacity to say it out loud, thinking we will not notice or that we are too afraid to repeat their words.
Consider the Minister of State for Defence, Bello Matawalle, a man from Zamfara State who knows the terrain of banditry better than most. In an interview with BBC Hausa published on June 12 and 13, 2026, Matawalle declared that only God can ultimately end Nigeria's insecurity. He said, and I quote, It is only God that can bring to an end this insecurity, alongside our collective prayers and efforts. In the same interview, he accused opposition figures of exaggerating the security situation to tarnish President Bola Ahmed Tinubu's reputation. He claimed that some videos circulating on social media are old clips from as far back as the Jonathan administration or from countries like Burkina Faso and Mali. This is the man in charge of defending the North telling us to pray while children are being herded into forests like cattle.
But Matawalle is not alone. Senator Ali Ndume, a man from Borno State who has seen the worst of the insurgency, told reporters in March 2026 after the Maiduguri suicide bombings that President Tinubu should concentrate on governance rather than politics. He warned that if reforms continue to fail, the government will become the enemy of the people. And yet, by May 2026, Ndume was singing a different tune. After the flag-off of the Gombe-Biu highway reconstruction project valued at 1.245 trillion naira, Ndume declared that the people of Borno would reward President Tinubu with their votes. He said, and I quote, I am sure that the people of the Northeast will appreciate this gesture of Mr. President and reward him with their votes in the forthcoming general elections. A road. A single road is supposed to erase the memory of thousands of dead children.
Governor Uba Sani of Kaduna State has been even more explicit. In April 2026, during an interactive session with journalists on the National Media Tour, he declared that President Tinubu has done more for the North than any leader in the history of Nigeria. He cited a 1 trillion naira light rail project in Kaduna and the 178 billion naira Mandu to Birnin Gwari Road. By May 2026, in a Channels Television interview, he acknowledged that Tinubu would lose if elections were held on social media but insisted that the actual ballot is a different story. His exact words were, There is no opposition in Kaduna against President Tinubu in 2027, and we make no apologies for that.
Governor Nasir Idris of Kebbi State said in June 2026 that Tinubu is my leader and mentor. We support him one hundred percent in Kebbi State. He went further to visit traditional rulers, including the Emir of Gwandu and the Emir of Argungu, to seek prayers and blessings for Tinubu's re-election. Governor Babagana Zulum of Borno State, a man respected even by his critics, said in May 2026, Insha Allah, the people of Borno State will vote for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for a second term. Governor Inuwa Yahaya of Gombe State, speaking as Chairman of the Northern States Governors Forum in July 2025, said the North would back Tinubu in 2027 in recognition of the administration's delivery on key electoral promises. He added that the North contributed over sixty percent of Tinubu's winning votes in 2023. And in June 2025, he said that the people of Gombe would follow Tinubu to the battlefield blindfolded.
Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State told Channels Television in February 2026 that a party controlling thirty-one states cannot be scared of a party that controls none. Governor Dikko Radda of Katsina State said in May 2026 that critics are noisemakers and that by God's grace, the APC will win the election. In Kano State, APC stakeholders led by former Chairman Abdullahi Ganduje adopted Tinubu as the sole presidential candidate in May 2026 and even contributed fifty million naira for the purchase of his nomination forms. In Zamfara State, APC stakeholders read a communiqué in April 2026 unequivocally supporting Tinubu's re-election. In Adamawa State, Governor Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri, who recently defected from the PDP to the APC, promised that Adamawa would deliver at least eighty-five percent of its votes to Tinubu. He said no other candidate would secure up to twenty-five percent in the state. In Kwara State, the Ilorin Emirate Political Advisory Council endorsed Tinubu for a second term in April 2026, saying he deserved another four years to consolidate. In Kogi State, Governor Ahmed Usman Ododo called Tinubu's re-election a personal project and a reward for the President's love for the state. In Niger State, an advocacy group called Niger Without Borders endorsed Tinubu, Governor Mohammed Umar Bago, and Senator Mohammed Sani Musa for re-election in May 2026.
This is the political elite. This is what they talk about while the North burns. They talk about roads and light rails and the percentage of votes they will deliver. They do not talk about the twenty million children out of school in the North, according to UNESCO. They do not talk about the fact that the North has the highest maternal mortality rate in Nigeria, with over one thousand deaths per one hundred thousand live births, according to UNICEF. They do not talk about the fact that over forty percent of the population of the North lives below the poverty line, according to the National Bureau of Statistics. They talk about votes. They talk about power. They talk about 2027.
And what does the middle class do? The middle class has become docile, as the title of this piece suggests. But docility is too gentle a word. The middle class has become complicit. They are the special assistants, the advisers, the errand boys, the consultants, the contractors, and the defenders of the people who have stolen their peace and their freedom. Every young man with a university degree who takes a job as a political aide to a governor or a minister knows exactly what he is doing. He knows that his salary comes from the same security vote that is meant to buy bulletproof vests for soldiers. He knows that the contract he executes is padded by two hundred percent. He knows that the press release he writes is designed to deceive the public. And he does it anyway. He does it because he has a family to feed, because the rent is due, because there are no other jobs. I understand. I do not condemn. I observe. And I conclude that the middle class has traded its conscience for a monthly salary. It is not even a good salary most of the time. It is enough to keep you quiet. That is the point.
Then there are the scholars. The professors, the researchers, the doctors of philosophy who have spent decades studying society, governance, and security. They know exactly what is wrong. They have written the papers. They have attended the conferences. They have submitted the memoranda. And then they have taken their positions as senior special advisers, as technical assistants, as consultants to the very government that ignores their research. They have become the lawyers who defend the indefensible. They have become the voices that rationalize the irrational. They have become the intellectual cover for a system that has failed the people. A scholar who knows that banditry is fueled by economic deprivation but refuses to say so because his funding comes from the state is not a scholar. He is a courtier. He is a praise singer in an academic gown.
And the musicians. What has become of the musicians of Arewa? They have become beggars and praise singers. They sing about the virtues of governors who have never built a single hospital. They compose songs for politicians who have stolen their children's future. They have traded the art of protest for the art of survival. And I do not blame them entirely. When the only way to eat is to sing the praises of the man who has taken everything from you, you sing. But let us not pretend that this is art. It is a eulogy for a dying culture.
The youth of the North have become social media influencers. They dance on TikTok. They post on Instagram. They tweet and retweet. And they do this while the government budgets billions of naira for media campaigns and hands them crumbs. The Ministry of Information and National Orientation budgeted over ten billion naira for publicity and media campaigns in 2025. Meanwhile, the same government cut funding for the National Directorate of Employment, which was supposed to provide jobs for young people. The youth have been given smartphones and data plans and told to be content. They have been made into a digital cheering squad for a regime that does not care if they live or die. They are the foot soldiers of the online propaganda machine. And they are paid peanuts for it.
This brings us to 2027. The election is not simply a political contest. It is a battle for the soul of Arewa. It is a battle between those who believe that the North can be something more than a voting bloc and those who have built their entire careers on treating the North as a herd of cattle to be moved in a particular direction. The North must rise. Not to violence. Not to hatred. But to consciousness. To introspection. To self-awareness. Because as it stands today, no one is safe. Not the poor farmer in Zamfara. Not the middle-class civil servant in Kaduna. Not the professor at Bayero University. Not the musician in Kano. Not the child in Maiduguri.
The political elite believe that they own the North. They believe that because they control the traditional rulers, the religious leaders, and the purse strings, they can deliver the votes of over forty million northern Nigerians like a parcel. They believe that hunger is not a political issue. They believe that insecurity is just a talking point. They believe that the abduction of schoolchildren is a public relations problem, not a moral catastrophe. They are wrong. They are dangerously wrong. And they will find out just how wrong they are when the people who have nothing left to lose decide that they would rather die on their feet than live on their knees.
To every Northerner who has a voice, a platform, a pen, a microphone, or a social media account, let me say this clearly. One way or another, this crisis will get to you. It will get to your family. It will get to your community. It will arrive at your door, and it will not ask for permission. You can speak now, or you can wait until the knock comes. You can use your voice to demand accountability, or you can use it to post videos of politicians dancing at rallies. The choice is yours. But do not tell yourself that staying quiet is the safe option. General Rabe kept quiet, and he was killed by bandits. Harira had no voice, and she was killed anyway. Silence is not safety. Silence is just a slower death.
I have chosen to speak. I know what that might cost me. I know that in Nigeria, speaking the truth is a dangerous profession. I know that the same politicians who are busy planning their 2027 campaigns have the resources and the willingness to silence anyone who threatens their ambitions. But I also know that I would rather speak and die than die in silence. I would rather my name be mentioned in the same breath as Emir of Gobir, Dadiyata, Mallam Jafar Adam, and Mallam Albani Zaria than live long enough to become a praise singer for the people who destroyed my homeland.
The North is bleeding. The political elite are feasting. The middle class is pretending not to see. The scholars are providing justification. The musicians are singing for scraps. And the youth are dancing on social media. 2027 will come. The votes will be cast. The winners will be declared. And then the insecurity will continue. The kidnappings will continue. The deaths will continue. Because the problem is not the president. The problem is not the governor. The problem is not the opposition. The problem is a system that has taught us that our lives are worth less than a politician's ambition.
Something must kill a man. In Nigeria, something always does. But before that something comes for me, I will use my voice. I will speak for the schoolchildren who cannot speak. I will speak for the farmers who cannot farm. I will speak for the mothers who have buried their sons. And I will speak for the North that has been sold to the highest bidder. If you are from the North and you have a voice, I ask you to do the same. Do not wait for 2027. Do not wait for the perfect moment. The perfect moment does not exist. There is only now. And right now, silence is not an option.
Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached via [email protected]
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