“Let us not mince words: these merchants of death were political thugs yesterday. They were armed to terrorize voters, hijack ballot boxes, and silence opponents. And when elections ended, the guns were not retrieved. The sponsors looked away”
They live in bushes. They loom large and hibernate in uncovered territories. They build their tents and camps in forests. They are not useful to parents, relations, or regions. Not useful to neighborhoods. Not useful to the nation.
Yet, they dominate our national life.
This gang of armed killers, parading as “bandits,” have become the greatest internal threat to Nigeria since independence. They were not born this way. They were created. They were armed. They were nurtured. By who? Politicians.
Let us not mince words: these merchants of death were political thugs yesterday. They were armed to terrorize voters, hijack ballot boxes, and silence opponents. And when elections ended, the guns were not retrieved. The sponsors looked away. The thugs mutated into warlords. The warlords became bandits. And the bandits now hold the nation by the throat.
Their main source of income is ransom paid by desperate families of kidnapped victims. Their main sport is the slaughter of innocent citizens. Their main target: Nigeria’s weak state and broken security architecture.
Since 2009, these wolves in human skin have butchered over 200,000 Nigerians. Two hundred thousand fathers, mothers, children, teachers, clergy, farmers, and traders. Dead. Villages wiped out. Schools emptied. Churches and mosques desecrated. Farmlands abandoned.
And yet, Nigeria’s political class pretends as though these killings are the work of ghosts. The very men who distributed weapons for political gain today issue empty statements of “condemnation.” They act as if they do not know who armed these criminals. They do. They always did.
The truth is bitter but undeniable: Nigeria’s politicians created the monster that now devours us.
We cannot continue like this. A nation cannot outsource its sovereignty to murderers living in bushes. A people cannot surrender highways, farms, and schools to thugs with AK-47s. Enough of speeches. Enough of silence. Until the sponsors of banditry are unmasked, disgraced, and punished, Nigeria will remain trapped in this bloody cycle.
History will not forgive a political class that armed its youths with guns instead of jobs, with bullets instead of books. And posterity will not forget that Nigeria’s graveyards are filling up — not because of fate, but because of political greed.
The blood of 200,000 cries out. And the echoes will never die until justice is done.
