Equal Protection for All: One Standard, One Nation

By Ibrahim Nasiru

Let’s stop beating around the bush about the kidnapping crisis in this country. Mass abductions have become a regular, sickening feature of our daily lives.

From the historical heartbreak of the Chibok girls—over 80 of whom are still missing in the North-East after 12 agonizing years—to the pupils taken in Oriire, it feels like our body politic is just moving from one trauma to the next.

For a long time, the official excuse was always the same: our security forces are overwhelmed, the forest terrain is too difficult, or the intelligence isn’t there. But that excuse collapsed just days ago with the rescue of the 46 school children and teachers from the Oriire Local Government Area in Oyo State.

After nearly two months in the forest, a serious, intelligence-driven military operation stormed the bandits’ den, neutralized the terrorists, and brought our kids home alive—without paying a single kobo in ransom. It was a brilliant, highly commendable miracle that we should all praise.

But as we celebrate, we must ask ourselves a very hard, uncomfortable question: If the federal government has the tactical hardware, the tracking intelligence, and the political will to smash bandits in the South-West, why is the story so completely different for other parts of the country?Right now, as the people of Oyo celebrate, 176 innocent women and children from the Woro community in Kaiama, Kwara State, are marking their 160th day inside the kidnappers’ den.

Even worse, the old wounds in Borno State are being violently ripped open again with fresh, large-scale abductions of women and children by Boko Haram insurgents.Their families are left to weep and beg in absolute frustration while the state has just proven it knows exactly how to execute a lightning-fast rescue when it wants to.

Why should a mother in Kwara, Niger, or Borno have to suffer indefinitely while the federal rescue machinery moves with elite precision in another zone?

Nigeria belongs to all of us. This is a country where every single citizen is supposed to be treated equally under the law. Our commitment to equality isn’t just a moral debate; it is explicitly guaranteed under Section 42 of our 1999 Constitution and Article 7 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The law is clear that every Nigerian has an equal right to personal liberty and state protection.Therefore, we cannot operate a two-tier security system where the lives of citizens in one region carry more institutional weight than lives in another. The pain of a parent in Kaiama, Chibok, or rural Borno is just as bitter as the pain felt in Oriire.

The federal government and the military high command must take the exact operational blueprint used in Oyo and deploy it immediately across every troubled region. We have just proved the bandits are not invincible when the government decides to seriously flex its muscles.

If we genuinely believe in “One Nation, One Destiny,” then the political will we saw in Oriire must become the immediate, non-negotiable standard for every corner of Nigeria.

No citizen should be left to rot in the dark just because of their geography.

Chief Ibrahim Nasiru

A Public Affairs Analyst writes from Abuja