CHILDREN’S DAY WITHOUT CHILDREN
Nigeria Cannot Celebrate While Terrorists Hunt Our Future
By Nze Amb. Val Onwuka JP (Oyi)
There is something deeply immoral about celebrating Children’s Day in a country where children disappear on their way to school.
There is something painfully hypocritical about colourful ceremonies, rehearsed speeches, dancing school bands, and government promises, while terrified parents sleep with one eye open, praying their children return home alive from classrooms that have now become hunting grounds for kidnappers and terrorists.
This year’s Children’s Day arrives not with joy, but with grief.
It arrives carrying the tears of mothers whose children were kidnapped in Oyo State. It arrives with the bloodstains of murdered teachers. It arrives with the silence of empty classrooms and abandoned school desks. It arrives with fear.
And the most frightening thing is that Nigerians are slowly becoming used to it.
That normalization is dangerous.
A nation should never become comfortable with the abduction of schoolchildren. A country should never adjust itself to evil so completely that kidnappings become ordinary news headlines buried between politics and entertainment gossip.
When children are abducted, the soul of a nation is abducted with them.
When teachers are murdered, hope itself is attacked.
And when government responses become repetitive press statements without visible urgency or decisive victories, citizens begin to lose faith in the meaning of leadership itself.
The government of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the ruling All Progressives Congress must understand that insecurity is no longer just a policy issue. It is now a moral emergency.
This is no longer about politics.
This is about survival.
No serious nation can develop while terrorists, bandits, and criminal syndicates dictate how children learn, where communities sleep, and whether ordinary citizens live or die.
No parent should have to choose between giving a child education and risking that child’s life.
No teacher should walk into a classroom wondering whether it may become his graveyard.
No child should associate school uniforms with fear.
Yet this has become the Nigerian reality.
From the North to the South, from highways to villages, from farms to schools, bloodshed has become so frequent that every fresh tragedy barely survives the news cycle before another one arrives to replace it.
The tragedy is not only that terrorists are attacking Nigeria.
The greater tragedy is that Nigerians are gradually losing confidence that anybody is truly in control.
That loss of confidence is deadly.
Because once citizens lose faith in the ability of the state to protect lives, desperation takes over. Communities begin to seek self-help. Fear replaces patriotism. Anger replaces trust. And the distance between the government and the governed becomes dangerously wide.
This is why Children’s Day should not merely be a ceremonial event this year.
It should be a national moment of sober reflection.
A moment for the Federal Government to look Nigerians in the eyes and admit that the security situation has become intolerable.
A moment for action, not propaganda.
A moment for results, not rhetoric.
The Tinubu administration must rise beyond symbolic gestures and demonstrate unmistakable political will against terrorism and violent criminality. Nigerians are tired of promises. Nigerians are tired of condolences. Nigerians are tired of hearing that security agencies are “on top of the situation” while graves continue to multiply across the country.
The government must understand that every kidnapped child is a direct indictment on the state.
Every grieving parent is a painful reminder of leadership failure.
Every abandoned community is evidence that somewhere, governance has broken down.
History will not remember how many speeches were delivered during Children’s Day celebrations.
History will remember whether Nigeria protected its children when it mattered most.
The Federal Government must immediately intensify intelligence gathering, strengthen inter-agency cooperation, secure schools aggressively, dismantle known criminal enclaves, and ensure that terrorists and kidnappers fear consequences again.
Enough of reactive governance.
Enough of waiting until tragedy happens before issuing statements.
Enough of reducing national pain to media management.
This country cannot continue like this.
A nation that cannot protect its children is standing on dangerous moral ground.
Because children are not statistics.
They are not security briefings.
They are not political talking points.
They are human beings.
They are dreams wrapped in innocence.
They are the future Nigeria keeps claiming to fight for.
And today, many Nigerian children are growing up learning fear before hope.
That should terrify every responsible leader.
So as government officials mount podiums today to celebrate Children’s Day, they must remember the children who are not present.
The abducted.
The displaced.
The orphaned.
The traumatized.
The murdered.
Those children deserve more than speeches.
They deserve a country willing to fight for them.
And until Nigeria becomes safe enough for every child to learn, laugh, dream, and sleep without fear, every Children’s Day celebration will remain incomplete, hollow, and painfully dishonest.
– Nze Amb. Val. Onwuka JP (Oyi)
