By Mohammed Bello Doka
7 June, 2026
Look at the North today. Really look. What do you see? You see a region drowning in blood, silence, and hypocrisy. You see a people who have forgotten how to resist, a leadership that has abandoned all pretense of protection, and a generation of young men and women who have traded their spines for smartphones. This is not merely a security crisis. This is a spiritual collapse. This is the Great Northern Surrender.
We have become experts at looking away. While murderous barbarians burn worshippers alive in mosques, we scroll through TikTok. While bandits raid schools and kidnap hundreds of children at a time, we argue about which Kannywood actor has the better haircut. While our sisters are raped and our mothers ransomed, we post crying emojis and return to our debates about meaningless entertainment. Amnesty International reported that in just three months of 2026, over 1,100 people were abducted in northern Nigeria. One thousand one hundred human beings. Not statistics. Fathers. Mothers. Two-year-old girls marched into forests. And what did we do? Nothing. We did nothing together. We have normalized helplessness.
The philosopher Edmund Burke warned that the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. We have done nothing for so long that we have forgotten we were ever capable of doing anything at all. The psychologist Rollo May wrote that the opposite of courage is not cowardice but conformity, the mindless surrender to what everyone else is doing. And what is everyone else doing? Nothing. We conform to inaction. We have turned the art of cowardice into a competitive sport.
But let us be honest about who is truly guilty. The political elite of the North have sold us for appointments and allocations. They sit in air-conditioned government houses, collecting security votes that vanish into private accounts, while their states burn. They stand on the mandate of a President who has refused to defend them, and they say nothing. They watch their people kidnapped in thousands, and they issue press releases. They form committees. They write communiques. They do everything except act. And the people? The people collect rice and noodles and keep the same system in power. A bag of grain is now the price of your silence. A few sachets of semovita and you will vote again for the men who abandoned your children to bandits.
The business class is no better. They pay billions in ransom rather than invest in defense companies. They fund the monster instead of building the walls. The SBM Intelligence report covering July 2024 to June 2025 revealed that at least 4,722 people were abducted across Nigeria, with kidnappers demanding nearly N48 billion and receiving verified payments of N2.57 billion in ransom. Two point five seven billion naira. That is not a crisis. That is an industry. The North-West alone accounted for 42.6 percent of incidents and 62.2 percent of victims. Zamfara recorded over 1,200 victims. Kaduna and Katsina follow close behind . And what do our business moguls do? They pay. They pay quietly. They pay quickly. They pay billions to the same criminals who will return tomorrow for more. They have turned kidnapping into a hedge against inflation, a predictable line item in their security budgets. Not once have they asked themselves: what if we used this money to arm our communities? What if we built local defense networks? What if we stopped funding the terror we claim to fight?
The educated class is the greatest shame of all. Our brightest minds compete not to solve problems but to secure appointments from the very government that refuses to protect us. Our scholars debate poetry while our sisters are raped. Our intellectuals write long Facebook threads condemning the government, and they believe they have done something. You have done nothing. You have typed. That is all. You have mistaken outrage for action, commentary for confrontation. Evil does not care about your condemnation. Evil cares only about your resistance. And you have offered none.
The Northern youth are the final tragedy. We have become a generation of cowards hiding behind screens. We accuse everyone except ourselves. We blame the government, we blame the elite, we blame the South, we blame the President, we blame the bandits, we blame everyone who is not us. And in doing so, we reveal the truth: we are not helpless. We have simply chosen helplessness because it is easier than courage. Courage requires sacrifice. Courage requires organization. Courage requires looking your neighbor in the eye and saying, Enough. And we have not been willing to do that.
Meanwhile, the youth continue to argue why an Igbo President will be the best thing to happen to the North. While your mothers are being ransomed, you debate ethnic politics on Twitter. While your sisters are kidnapped from churches, you calculate which southern candidate will give you a better appointment. This is not political analysis. This is madness. This is the surrender of the mind before the surrender of the body.
But here is the truth that the elite, the rich, the educated, and the powerful refuse to accept: power is transient. You will not be in power forever. You will either retire, or your tenure will expire, or the voters will remove you. And on that day, you will become as vulnerable as the poorest farmer in Zamfara. The monster does not ask for your bank statement before it strikes. The monster does not check your political party or your tribal affiliation. The monster only asks: are you defenseless?
Consider the case of Major General Rabe Abubakar, the former Director of Defence Information who served as military spokesperson from 2015 to 2017. On Saturday, 30th May 2026, he was traveling to Katsina for a wedding when armed men attacked his vehicle. His driver escaped despite being shot. The general and his wife were taken away into a forest. A military spokesman confirmed that efforts are underway to rescue them, but as of this writing, they remain in captivity . A retired general. A man who spent his life defending Nigeria. And even he was not safe. The monster reached his doorstep. It reached his car. It reached his wife. If a general can be taken, who among you believes you are immune?
Reports indicate that the abductors may not have even known they had captured a high-profile victim. They were described as opportunistic criminals rather than a well-organized bandit group. Some sources noted that the attackers were fewer than the large groups usually associated with notorious bandit leaders. They saw a red vehicle. They attacked. They took. They did not ask for a resume . That is the terror of this moment: you do not need to be famous to be a target. You only need to be present.
The late Emir of Gobir, Alhaji Isa Muhammad Bawa, learned this lesson in another way. Before his death, his community and the entire Gobir emirate had been under sustained attack by bandits who kidnapped villagers, demanded ransoms, and killed those who could not pay. The Emir himself was not spared the indignity of watching his people suffer. The bandits did not respect his title. They did not fear his throne. They saw only another source of ransom. Power did not protect him. Status did not shield him. Wealth did not buy him safety. Nothing protected him except what he could organize on the ground. And like so many northern communities, Gobir had surrendered the duty of self-defense to a government that was never coming.
This is the pattern. This is the warning. The crisis is not coming. It is here. And it is climbing the ladder of status. It started with poor farmers in remote villages. Then it reached schoolchildren. Then it reached traders and travelers. Then it reached teachers and civil servants. Then it reached religious leaders. Then it reached traditional rulers. Then it reached retired generals. Who do you think is next? Do you think your gated community will stop them? Do you think your political connections will frighten them? Do you think your money will negotiate with men who have already collected billions and want more?
The hypocrisy of our situation is staggering. Communities across the North have raised hundreds of millions of naira to pay bandits rather than invest in their own self-defense. Villages pool their meager savings and hand them to criminals. Parents sell their land to ransom their children. Families go bankrupt paying kidnappers who will return next month. And not once do they ask: what if we used this money to buy weapons? What if we used this money to train guards? What if we used this money to build watchtowers and communication networks? Instead, we fund the terror. We finance our own destruction. And we call it survival.
The business class is even worse. They pay billions in ransom rather than invest in private security firms, rather than fund local defense manufacturing, rather than create the infrastructure of resistance. Between July 2024 and June 2025, kidnappers collected N2.57 billion in verified ransom payments . That money could have armed hundreds of community guards. It could have built dozens of fortified safe rooms. It could have funded intelligence networks. Instead, it went directly into the pockets of the men who will kidnap your children tomorrow. You are paying for the bullets that will be aimed at your family. This is not security. This is insanity.
The political class continues to stand on the mandate of a President who has refused to defend them. They know the federal government has failed. They know the security architecture is broken. They know that the bandits move freely through forests and villages like lords of the land. And still, they do nothing except issue statements and wait for Abuja. Their governors collect security votes and distribute rice. They count on your hunger to buy your silence. And it works. Every time. You collect your noodles. You collect your sugar. You collect your bag of grain. And you keep them in power. You have sold your dignity for a few kilograms of food.
The psychologist Viktor Frankl, who survived the Holocaust, wrote that when we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves. But we can change this situation. We are not prisoners. We are not helpless. We have simply chosen helplessness because it is easier than courage. We have decided that it is better to pay than to fight. Better to flee than to stand. Better to type than to act. And in doing so, we have become the cowards our ancestors would have wept to see.
Let us recall some of the most brutal acts committed by these bandits. In November 2025, armed men stormed St. Mary Catholic Primary and Secondary Schools in Niger State, abducting over 300 students and teachers. In the same month, 25 students were taken from a school in Kebbi State. A teacher was killed . In Katsina State, on the same weekend that General Abubakar was kidnapped, armed men raided the village of Kiliya in the Dutsinma area shortly after Friday prayers, killing at least 16 people who were gathering to celebrate Eid al-Adha . Worshippers were snatched from churches. Villagers were marched into forests. A two-year-old girl was taken. And still, the North sleeps.
None of this has been enough to spite the youth to stand up. None of it has provoked the elite to act. None of it has awakened the educated class from its slumber. You hear that 1,100 people were abducted in three months, and you scroll past. You hear that a general was kidnapped, and you shake your head and move on. You hear that children are being burned in mosques, and you post a sad emoji. What will it take? How many bodies must fall before you look up from your phone? How many ransoms must be paid before you realize that you are funding your own extinction?
The philosopher Thomas Hobbes described the state of nature as a war of all against all, where life is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. That is the North today. But Hobbes also argued that men can escape this condition by forming a commonwealth, by uniting under a shared power that protects them. We have no such power. The government has abandoned us. The President has failed us. The governors have betrayed us. There is no commonwealth coming to save you. You must save yourself. Or you will perish.
I blame myself as much as I blame anyone. I have written words instead of building structures. I have posted opinions instead of organizing neighbors. I have sat in an air-conditioned room and condemned the cowardice of others while practicing the same cowardice in my own life. But acknowledgment of failure must be the first step toward action, not the final excuse for inaction.
The North cannot afford another generation of young men and women who mistake outrage for action, who believe that tweeting is the same as fighting, who think that because they have condemned evil they have somehow confronted it. Evil does not care about your condemnation. Evil cares only about your resistance. And your resistance so far has been zero.
We stand at a crossroads. One path leads to more of the same: more kidnappings, more funerals, more ransoms paid to barbarians who laugh at us. The other path leads to something unknown, something difficult, something that will require sacrifice and blood and tears. But at least on that path, we walk with our heads held high. At least on that path, our children will not be ashamed to call us ancestors.
Let me close with a truth that must be shouted from every rooftop in the North. Insecurity is like air pollution. You may think you are safe in your gated community. You may believe your wealth will protect you. You may trust that your political connections will shield you. But pollution does not ask for your permission before it enters your lungs. It does not check your bank balance before it poisons your blood. It spreads to everyone. Gradually. Inevitably. Relentlessly. And one day, you will wake up and find that the monster has reached your door. Your car. Your wife. Your child. And on that day, you will remember this article. You will remember that you were warned. And you will know that you did nothing while there was still time.
Insecurity is like air pollution. Gradually, it will get to everyone.
The choice is ours. But let no one say they did not know what was coming. The monster will reach us all, one by one, unless we reach for each other first. That is the only truth that matters now.
Mohammed Bello Doka can be reached at [email protected]
Abuja Network News
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Opinion