By Kayode Emola

Many people living in Nigeria do not often see the dangers they are surrounded by. On the surface, the country looks like a functioning one, despite the numerous challenges it is facing. But on paper, it should not even be considered a working experiment; however, Nigerians themselves always defy the odds, adjusting to any kind of pain just to survive.

Since the establishment of the Boko Haram terrorist group in 2009, Nigeria have been sleepwalking into a failed state. There’s never been a time it has ever been more pronounced than the current state of paralysis of the security situation. The primary function of any government is the protection of the lives and properties of its citizens. In Nigeria, it seems the protection of the lives and properties of the terrorists above that of the citizens feels sacrosanct.

Such that, Nigerian Army Generals are now up for slaughter by these terrorists, talk less of innocent civilians. No day goes by in Nigeria without someone being kidnapped, yet the government has no decisive response to the ongoing assault.

Truth be told, every person living in Nigeria, including the politicians are now living in a hostage situation. For the political class to be silent on the grave danger the country and its citizens are currently undergoing shows that they themselves are hostages of the situation.

Helpless as it seems, the security situation is not beyond redemption, but because the country has been designed not to work, the people are continuously helpless in the face of insurgency. As it is now, no place is safe in Nigeria, not the schools, marketplaces, churches or even the villages are safe anymore.

Yet, the Yoruba people, who pride themselves as the most educated people in Nigeria, if not in Africa, seem to also be helpless in all of this. Worst still, a Yoruba man in the person of Bola Tinubu is the president of Nigeria. If Baba Awolowo is the president of Nigeria, would he allow the menace of insecurity to fester for this long without dealing a decisive blow?

Is President Tinubu and the political class afraid of the enemies of the people? Does Nigeria have a powerful enemy who is hellbent on the wanton destruction of the people without mercy? If not, why does it seem like these terrorists are invincible?

After all, the government have all it takes to take down these criminal networks. However, because the government are hostage to this situation, it seems only a divine intervention can break us free from these chains we have come to find ourselves in.

Yoruba, we have dwelt on this mountain of freedom for too long. We have prayed, fasted and remained sober for a very long time, and it seems as though nothing is happening. Day in and day out, our people are being kidnapped and slaughtered at will by the terrorists who show us no mercy.

This calls for an urgent and drastic action before the situation gets totally out of control. We have failed to nip this in the bud, but we must not fail to curtail it before it consumes us all. This is not the time to stay idle and hope that a miracle will fall on our lap. It is time for every Yoruba person to gird their loins and take the fight to the enemy’s camp with God on our side.

If the government is afraid to declare a state of emergency and to put a bounty on the head of the terrorists, then we must not wait for a government that does not exist. If the government cannot protect the lives and properties of the citizens, then it’s time for the citizens to rise in self-defence to protect themselves.

Otherwise, we may wake up one day and discover that the Yoruba civilisation that has endured many civilisation has disappeared; God forbid: This is not our hope and prayer, but whilst the Nigerian government is unable to protect our people, we must now rise to the occasion to protect our lives and those of our loved ones, if not we may not be able to escape this hostage situation we now find ourselves.

By Kayode Emola.

When over 40 children and adults were kidnapped in their school on the morning of Friday, 15th May 2026, in Oyo State, little did anyone know that 3 weeks in, and the government still wouldn’t have a clue about their rescue. It seems we have not learned anything from the Chibok school girls kidnapping over a decade ago, and many more similar attacks are very likely imminent.

Make no mistake, this is not about kidnapping anymore; this is an open declaration of war by the fundamentalist Islamic Jihadist. The earlier we realise this, the more prepared we will be in tackling such a menace in our society. This is not a time to reflect and make suggestions, but the time has come for decisive action to be taken by every Yoruba person.

The terrorists have kidnapped the school children, hoping to break the core spirit of the average Yoruba person to fight back, but we must now turn the tables on them. Their hope and plan must backfire on them by the core determination of every Yoruba to resist any form of subjugation.

This time around, we must arm ourselves ready for any form of attack or subjugation by the Fulani Caliphate. We must make sure they understand that you don’t come to Yoruba soil to kidnap people and then go scot-free. We must do this if we must survive this wholesale aggression against the Yoruba people.

Deploying security personnel into the forest when people have been kidnapped is not the right approach in securing our Yorubaland. We must now set up a wholesale community defence outfit that can protect the lives and properties of every individual in the community. If not, situations like the Oyo kidnapping cannot be ruled out.

Every community in Yorubaland must now realise that the security of their lives and properties is not in the hands of the government or the terrorists. It is in their own hands, and they must take it very seriously. We must not descend into a protest community whenever serious issues like this happen to us; if not, we may get to a situation where we give in to the bullies.

A stitch in time, they say, saves nine, and we must be better prepared to tackle this issue of insecurity holistically rather than adopting a knee-jerk approach. We must not wait for calamity to befall us before we act.

Every Yoruba town and village must now set up a vigilante group under the Kajodasi program being initiated by the Yoruba Self-Determination Movement (YSDM) for community defence. We must take our security seriously if we are to survive this onslaught being heaped on us by the Fulani Caliphate.

This is not a time to dilly-dally or the time to point accusing fingers. It is time to take decisive action that will lead us to a total restoration. Yorubaland must be rid of this menace and the terroristic tendencies of these marauders, plunging us into the dark ages. We must resist it now, whilst there is still the opportunity to do so before it becomes too overwhelming to handle.

By Kayode Emola

What should ordinarily horrify any sane society always seems to be normalised in Nigeria, a supposed giant of Africa. Killings and kidnappings have now become a political sport that politicians deploy to undo their opponents. What started like a mere rebellion by a sectarian group (Boko Haram) in Maiduguri has now engulfed the entire country like wildfire, yet there is no solution in sight.

Those who hold political positions and others vying for the same positions have no concrete plan to proffer any solution to the insecurity problems. They all promise what they would do to tackle insecurity during elections, only to get into power and suddenly realise insecurity is a demon unleashed from hell that cannot be caged.

It cannot be right that those who hold political positions abuse their first agency, which is the protection of the lives and properties of the citizens. Every citizen has a fundamental right that must be protected at all costs. In Nigeria, the contrast is the case, the security agencies from the military to the police and other civil and paramilitary defences in the country no longer see their primary duty as the protection of lives.

No one of this agency is bold enough to defy the odds just to do the right thing. Every military and paramilitary outfit now see themselves as an agent of conformity rather than an agent of change. They have failed Nigerians in a manner that cannot be explained even to a little child, and it’s high time something is done about it. Our people can’t continue to be slaughtered like chickens whilst the politicians look away as though unbothered by the problem.

How can it be right that in a country that has territorial integrity, armed terrorists can go into a particular community in Ogbomosho to kidnap people, and all the politicians can think of in Oyo State is primary elections. In other kidnappings that have happened in places like Kwara State, these terrorists spend hours, and in some cases, days to kidnap a whole village and no security agency is alerted, despite it taking them multiple trips to carry out their nefarious activities.

If someone can help me make this make sense, then I would be most grateful. It shows that it is not as though the military and paramilitary outfits cannot deal with the situation. What this shows is that the Nigerian government have lost the will to continue to govern the same people they swore with the Bible and Quran to protect.

If that is the case, it is not a question of letting every nationality in Nigeria pull out of Nigeria. Rather, the situation has called for every citizen to acquire a basic weapon to defend themselves, according to the Director of State Security (DSS) Director General (DG) Tosin Ajayi. If people now begin to acquire basic ammunition to defend themselves and their community, these terrorists would not dare to attack them.

Otherwise, our civilian population will continue to call on the politicians who are tone deaf to the insecurity problems bedevilling the country but alive to the political machinations going on around them. Our political class have now shown clearly that the only thing they’re interested in is their own positions and political future. Even if the country burns to the ground, they don’t care as long as they can pick themselves and their families up and move on with whatever they’ve looted.

I hope and pray that our Yoruba people can wake up to smell the coffee and see that Nigeria’s time as a country is up. It has lost every moral position in the world to continue to stand among the comity of nations as a viable country. If the international community does not act sooner rather than later, then God Almighty will intervene in His own way and might deliver the innocent people of Nigeria from bloodshed. Otherwise, a bloody civil war may soon erupt that would take the lives of countless millions of people.