There are days when the news ceases to be a mere record of events and becomes, instead, a haunting ledger of a country’s unravelling and the grim record of absurdities that mock reason and exhaust the citizens’ spirit. Across the length and breadth of Nigeria, stories emerge not as isolated incidents but as portions of a larger and disquieting narrative that speak of a country caught in the grip of violence, indifference, and a tragicomic descent into the bizarre. In these stories, the ordinary citizen is both victim and spectator, condemned to watch as the country falters in its most basic obligations, while those entrusted with power appear grotesquely disconnected from the urgency of the moment.

Consider, for a moment, the harrowing ordeal of John Arum, a student of the University of Jos, whose abduction and subsequent torture became a spectacle through the cruel circulation of a viral video. In that disturbing footage, his captors were not merely content with the extraction of ransom but seemed driven by a perverse need to display their brutality and to stage their violence as an exhibition of fear. The young man’s eventual release, secured only after the payment of a substantial ransom by his family, does not resolve the horror of his experience but rather underscores the normalisation of a grotesque economy in which human life is priced, negotiated, and traded. Kidnapping in Nigeria has long evolved beyond sporadic criminality into an entrenched industry that is sustained by impunity and enabled by the glaring inadequacies of state response. The spectacle of torture, now so easily disseminated across digital platforms, transforms private sufferings into public trauma, deepening the sense of collective helplessness.

From the Plateau to the Benue trough, the geography of grief expands with chilling consistency. In the Olegabulu community of Agatu Local Government Area of Benue State, gunmen descended with deadly precision, extinguishing lives with a cruelty that has become almost routine in the Middle Belt. Among the dead was a traditional ruler, alongside his wife, his son, and two other residents. Their killings served as yet another reminder of the fate of communities that exist beyond the immediate reach of effective state protection. These are not merely statistics in a tally of casualties but ruptures in the social fabric, with each death reverberating through a country strained by years of bloodletting. The persistence of such attacks raises questions that have long been asked but remain unanswered, questions about the capacity and willingness of the Nigerian state to confront the forces that perpetuate this cycle of violence.

In the same Benue State, the tragic death of Ben Agir, a young member of the National Youth Service Corps, adds a chilling dimension to the country’s catalogue of senseless violence, as he was beaten to death by local vigilantes in Buruku barely weeks before his passing out parade. Stopped late at night and asked to identify himself, he reportedly presented both his person and his motorcycle with clarity, yet suspicion, fueled by ignorance and mob impulse, quickly overwhelmed reason, and he was accused of theft and of falsely claiming to be a corps member. 

Even as he insisted on his identity and reportedly produced his credentials, his pleas were dismissed, allegedly because those who confronted him could not read the documents he offered, choosing instead to trust their suspicion over evidence. By the time his identity was eventually verified and he was rushed to the hospital, the damage had been done, and he was pronounced dead on arrival, a victim not only of brutality but of a deeper failure of civic sense and basic literacy. The subsequent arrest of the vigilantes does little to assuage the loss, while the initial confusion from officials over his deployment only compounds the tragic irony of a young man who, in service to his country, fell prey to the very country he was meant to serve.

While blood is spilt in one part of the country, in another, the theatre of politics unfolds in ways that would be absurd were they not so revealing of a deeper malaise. In Benin City, the much-anticipated gathering of the City Boy Movement, heavily publicised and invested with symbolic significance, ended not with the expected fervour but with an unmistakable snub. The people of Edo turned away, as their absence spoke louder than any protest could. Political mobilisation, once driven by ideology or shared aspiration, now appears hollow and sustained more by orchestrated optics than by genuine popular engagement. The empty spaces at such gatherings become metaphors for a widening disconnect between the wayward ruling party and the citizenry.

Staying in the north central region of Nigeria, no fewer than thirty traditional rulers across the southern axis of Kwara State have quietly abandoned their ancestral palaces in the face of unrelenting kidnappings, killings, and violent incursions. Findings indicate that these custodians of local authority, once the symbolic and moral anchors of their communities, have retreated to safer urban centres, including Ilorin, Osogbo, Offa, and even distant Lagos. Community sources speak of hurried departures and shuttered compounds, of stools left unattended and of a silence now hanging over spaces that once embodied continuity, authority, and cultural memory. 

The affected communities, among them Omugo, Afin, Oreke, Oreke Oke Igbo, Olohuntele, Alabe, Ganmu Ailehri, Ologanmo, and Igbo Agbon, have endured repeated attacks over the past year, their precarity laid bare by the absence of effective state protection. The flight of traditional rulers is more than a personal act of self-preservation. It signals a profound rupture in the framework of local governance and social order. In their absence, communities are left exposed, stripped of both leadership and legitimacy, while the authority of the state appears increasingly distant. What emerges is a troubling portrait of rural abandonment, where fear displaces tradition and violence redraws the boundaries of belonging.

Amid these scenes of absurdity and neglect, the shadow of insurgency looms large, its presence marked by both its brutality and the unsettling silence that often follows its acts. The killing of the general, Oseni Omoh Braimah, by Boko Haram stands as a stark testament to the persistent threat posed by the insurgent group. The death of a high-ranking military officer should, in any functional state, trigger a decisive and visible response, a reaffirmation of the state’s resolve to protect its sovereignty and its citizens. Instead, what follows is a disquieting absence of clarity and an apparent lack of urgency that emboldens those who thrive on chaos. Boko Haram, undeterred, continues its campaign of violence, leaving in its wake a trail of blood and tears that stretches across communities already burdened by years of conflict.

Here’s some more news from the sad country. What the military hierarchy and the ruling party once dismissed with emphatic denials has now assumed the weight of undeniable truth, as the alleged coup, previously consigned to the realm of speculation, reveals itself through the very actions of the state that had sought to repudiate it. The government, in a striking turn, has proceeded to arraign those identified as plotters before the courts, while the military high command has moved with equal decisiveness to subject serving officers implicated in the affair to court martial, thereby lending institutional acknowledgement to what had been publicly disowned. Beyond the unfolding drama of intrigue within the corridors of power, there is the sobering response from abroad, as the United States, in a gesture that underscores growing international concern, issued a travel advisory urging its citizens to avoid Nigeria, while its embassy, in a further sign of unease, shut its doors to the public; an act that speaks volumes about the perception of a country increasingly seen through the prism of uncertainty and risk.

The convergence of these events, disparate as they may initially appear, reveals a pattern that is difficult to ignore. In the Nigerian condition, there is a recurring interplay between tragedy and absurdity, and between the gravely serious and the almost surreal. The kidnapping of a young student, the massacre of a family in Benue, the spectacle of traditional rulers taking to flight, political indifference in Edo, news of coup and the trial of coupists, America closing the door of its embassy, and the relentless violence of insurgency all form part of a continuum in which the boundaries between governance and neglect, between leadership and pretence, are increasingly blurred. This is not merely a crisis of security or of politics but a deeper crisis of meaning: one in which the institutions that should anchor our country seem unable to command either trust or coherence.

What emerges from this landscape is a troubling question about the nature of the Nigerian state and its relationship with its citizens. 

A nation-state that cannot guarantee security, that fails to respond decisively to violence, and that indulges in gestural displays at the expense of substantive public policy risks eroding the very foundation of its legitimacy. Citizens, confronted daily with stories of suffering and absurdities, are left to navigate a reality in which hope becomes an act of defiance rather than a reasonable expectation. 

For now, the news will continue to read as a chronicle of contradictions, a record of a country in which the extraordinary has become ordinary, and the absurd has taken on the guise of the inevitable. In that chronicle, the voices of those who suffer will persist in demanding not only to be heard but to be answered, while calling for a reckoning that can no longer be postponed without consequence. Those voices will endure as a mirror to power, reflecting not only its failures but also its choices, and insisting, with quiet yet unyielding force, that a different story remains possible, if only the will to write it can be summoned.

Abdul Mahmud, a human rights attorney in Abuja, writes weekly for The Gazette