By Tony Onyima
On Easter Sunday, when Christians across the world were proclaiming the triumph of life over death, their counterparts in parts of Nigeria were confronted with a grim inversion of that message. In Ariko, Kachia Local Government Area of Kaduna State, worshippers gathered in reverence at St. Augustine Catholic Church and a nearby ECWA congregation. Seven of them did not return home. Armed assailants stormed these sanctuaries, killing them and abducting others into the forests.
Days earlier, in Jos, Plateau State, communities had already been drenched in blood. Families were torn apart. Homes were shattered. At least 28 lives were extinguished in coordinated attacks that bore all the hallmarks of a nation steadily losing control of its own security architecture.
These are not isolated tragedies. They are connected episodes in a deepening national crisis; one that is no longer episodic but systemic, no longer shocking but increasingly routine. And therein lies the real horror.
The statement issued by the Order of the Knights of St. Mulumba Nigeria cuts through the fog of official language with rare moral clarity. Signed by the Supreme Knight, Sir Steve Adehi, the statement describes the killings as part of “a dark pattern of unchecked violence.” It is difficult to improve on that diagnosis. It is stark, unsettling, and accurate.
But the Knights went further. They declare, with a tone that oscillates between anguish and anger: “We are no longer just mourning; we are outraged by a state that seems to have surrendered its sovereignty to bandits.”
That sentence should disturb every seat of power in Nigeria. Because it raises a question that can no longer be postponed: has the Nigerian state, in practice if not in theory, begun to cede its most fundamental responsibility— the protection of life?
For years now, Nigerians have endured a predictable cycle. Violence erupts. Lives are lost. Officials issue statements of condemnation. Investigations are announced. Promises are made. And then — silence. Until the next attack. It is a cycle so familiar that it has acquired the rhythm of ritual.
Nowhere was this ritual more evident than in the aftermath of the Jos killings. President Bola Ahmed Tinubu flew into Plateau State in a show of concern and solidarity. Yet the symbolism of the visit was undermined by its execution. Rather than going to the affected communities, the President received victims and officials at the airport.
There, he spoke words that were empathetic, even compassionate: “No amount of money can compensate for your loss… we will do our best to support and comfort you.” He promised the deployment of surveillance technology. He directed security agencies to apprehend the perpetrators. He assured Nigerians that the state would act. Earlier, Governor Caleb Muftwang had visited the scene in an Armoured Personnel Carrier (APC), pun intended, and gave similar assurances. But here is the uncomfortable truth: Nigerians have heard all of these before.
The problem is no longer the absence of words. It is the collapse of belief in those words.
When citizens begin to interpret presidential assurances as part of a familiar script rather than as a prelude to decisive action, a dangerous threshold has been crossed. Governance, at that point, risks degenerating into performance — well-intentioned perhaps, but ultimately ineffective.
The Knights captured this failure with devastating precision: “Sympathy is not a security strategy. Condemnation is not a shield for the vulnerable.” This is not merely a clever turn of phrase. It is an indictment of a governing philosophy that appears to substitute rhetoric for results.
To be clear, empathy matters. Leadership requires the capacity to console, to acknowledge grief, to stand with victims in moments of profound loss. But empathy, in the absence of enforcement, becomes hollow. It soothes temporarily, but it does not protect. It comforts, but it does not deter. And deterrence is precisely what Nigeria is losing.
Across large swathes of the country, armed groups now operate with a degree of confidence that would have been unthinkable two decades ago. They attack villages in broad daylight. They raid highways with impunity. They invade places of worship, spaces that ought to be inviolable, and execute their violence with chilling efficiency.
What explains this audacity?
The answer lies not only in the capacity of these groups, but in the perceived incapacity, or unwillingness, of the state to confront them decisively. When perpetrators of violence are neither swiftly apprehended nor visibly punished, impunity ceases to be an exception. It becomes the norm. And when impunity becomes the norm, violence becomes a rational enterprise.
The targeting of churches adds an especially disturbing dimension to this crisis. Churches are not merely physical structures; they are symbolic spaces — repositories of hope, community, and spiritual refuge. To attack them is to send a message that nowhere is safe. Not the home. Not the road. Not even the house of God. It is a message that breeds fear, but also something more corrosive: resignation. A nation that begins to accept that its citizens can be slaughtered in their places of worship without consequence is a nation on the brink of moral exhaustion.
This is why the Knights’ call for a strategic shift, from a “defensive reactionary posture” to an offensive dismantling of terror networks, is not radical. It is elementary. Security, by its very nature, must be proactive. It must anticipate threats, disrupt networks, and impose costs on those who choose violence.
Yet Nigeria’s current posture often appears reactive; arriving after the fact, documenting the damage, and promising future action. This is not strategy. It is inertia disguised as process.
Equally troubling is the persistent absence of accountability within the security architecture. When territories repeatedly become killing fields, when intelligence failures recur without consequence, when operational lapses are neither investigated nor sanctioned, failure becomes institutionalised.
The Knights were unequivocal on this point: “If a territory remains a killing field, the leadership in that zone lacks the character to lead, and there must be consequences for the failure.”
This is a hard truth, but it is a necessary one. Leadership, in any serious system, is inseparable from responsibility. To command without accountability is to invite mediocrity and, in matters of security, mediocrity costs lives.
Justice, too, remains elusive. Nigerians are told, repeatedly, that perpetrators will be “brought to book.” But justice is not a phrase. It is a process —visible, verifiable, and consequential. It requires arrests, prosecutions, convictions. It requires that those who take lives face the full weight of the law. Until that happens consistently, impunity will continue to embolden violence.
The implications of this crisis extend beyond immediate security concerns. They strike at the very foundation of the Nigerian state. A government derives its legitimacy, in large part, from its ability to protect its citizens. When that protection falters, legitimacy erodes. And when legitimacy erodes, trust follows.
Nigeria today is not merely confronting armed groups. It is confronting a crisis of confidence. Citizens are increasingly uncertain that the state can, or will, guarantee their safety. Communities are left to improvise their own security arrangements. Fear becomes decentralised. Authority becomes diffused. This is how states weaken; not always through dramatic collapse, but through gradual erosion.
The killings in Kaduna and Jos are, therefore, not just tragedies. They are indicators—signals of a deeper structural problem that demands urgent, decisive intervention. What, then, must be done?
First, the rhetoric-action gap must be closed. Government statements must translate into measurable outcomes—rescues effected, perpetrators apprehended, networks dismantled. Without this, communication becomes noise.
Second, intelligence and operational capabilities must be strengthened in a manner that is both strategic and sustained. Security is not achieved through episodic deployments, but through continuous, coordinated effort.
Third, accountability must be enforced at all levels of the security chain. Failure must carry consequences. Success must be recognised and replicated. Fourth, justice must be made visible. Trials must be conducted. Convictions must be secured. The law must be seen to function.
Finally, leadership must reconnect with lived reality. Symbolism matters, but substance matters more. Visits must not only be seen; they must be felt in the form of concrete change. None of these measures are revolutionary. They are, in fact, the basic expectations of governance. And yet, their consistent absence has brought Nigeria to this point—where condolences are becoming a ritual, where outrage risks becoming fatigue, and where violence risks becoming normal.
This must not be allowed to continue. The victims in Kaduna, in Jos, and across countless other communities deserve more than remembrance. They deserve justice. The living deserve more than assurances. They deserve security. The Nigerian state must decide, urgently and unequivocally, whether it intends to provide it.
Because history is watching. And history is rarely forgiving of nations that fail to protect their own.
Dr Onyima teaches media and communication at Paul University, Awka, Anambra State.
