Nigeria is bleeding now and the silence from those with the loudest voices is becoming its own kind of crime. This is a cry that every Nigerian needs to read and share right now.
Honestly I debated whether to even post this.
I started it twice and stopped. Not because the words were not there but because sometimes when something is this heavy you second guess whether putting it out there will even change anything. You know that feeling. You sit there with a full mind and an empty page and you just look at each other for a while.
But then I thought about the alternative. Staying quiet. And I could not do it.
So here we are.
You know the routine by now. You wake up, you reach for your phone before you have even properly sat up, and boom. Something happened again last night. People were killed. A whole community chased out of their homes. Petrol went up. Some government person stole money that was supposed to fix a hospital and nothing will happen to them. Another young Nigerian who was doing well just announced they are packing their bags.
And we do the thing we have been doing for years now.
Sigh. Shake the head. Screenshot it for one person. Type something in the group chat. And move on. Carry the day. Go to work. Open the shop. Pick up the children from school. Come home. Sleep. Wake up. Do it again.
I understand why we do it. Genuinely. When pain becomes daily it starts to feel like weather. You stop fighting it and you just dress for it.
But something about this particular season is sitting differently with me. Something about the combination of everything happening at once and the sound of who is saying nothing is making me feel things I cannot just shake off and move on from.
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Nigeria is bleeding now. And I do not mean that as a dramatic headline. I mean it literally. Real people. Real communities. Real lives being destroyed. And the people who have the kind of reach that could actually shift something — most of them are somewhere quiet and comfortable, waiting for it all to blow over.
I have to ask. Because I have been holding these questions and they are not getting lighter.
Where are the pastors?
I am serious. You have buildings that fit more people than most stadiums. You have members who will do anything you say. You preach every single week about justice and truth and standing up when it is hard. Your sermons are streaming in countries you have never visited. People quote you, follow you, believe in you deeply. So when your own country is going through something like this — where is that same voice? Where is the pastor who shows up for the hard moment and not just the celebration?
Where are the imams? The bishops? The prophets who are always receiving something from God — what is God saying right now about the families being displaced in the north? What is He saying about the children going to bed hungry in a country sitting on oil money?
Where are the celebrities? I watch you trend every week. I see the engagement you pull. I see brands throwing money at you because of the influence you carry. That influence is real. I am not arguing that. But influence that only works for product launches and personal brands and album rollouts — what kind of influence is that really? You cannot squeeze out one honest post about what is happening to the people who made you who you are?
Where did the bloggers go? The independent journalists? The media houses that used to make powerful people nervous?
And the politicians — I have made peace with not expecting much there. That pain is old.
Nigeria is bleeding and the silence from the places I expected noise from is something I am still trying to process.
About That Silence
Evans Charles is not a celebrity. He is not a politician or a pastor or someone with a verified page and brand deals. He is just a Nigerian man who had something real on his chest and put it into words. And one thing he wrote has been following me around since I read it.
He said — this is not the time for any of us to fold our arms and say it is not my business just because the fire has not reached our own compound yet.
I keep coming back to that line.
Because it describes exactly what I am seeing. People whose lives are still okay enough are choosing to look away. Their own children are fine. Their own salary is coming in. Their own neighbourhood is still relatively calm. So they have made a quiet decision that this is not their fight. They mute the heavy group chat conversations. They scroll past the difficult headlines fast enough that it does not really land. They pray for personal favour and go home. Nigeria is bleeding now
But Nigeria is bleeding now behind the gate they have locked themselves behind.
This is not something that is happening far away to people you will never meet. Terrorism is eating communities the same way termites eat wood — from the inside, quietly, until the whole thing collapses. Hunger is doing the rest of the work. Real farmers who have farmed the same land their fathers farmed are now too afraid to go there. Real families are calculating whether a road journey is worth the risk of not coming back. And the young people — the ones this country actually needs — are leaving. Not on holiday. Leaving leaving. And the ones who cannot leave are learning how to call surviving a life. Nigeria is bleeding now
I want to know when we had the meeting where we agreed this was acceptable. Because I missed that one.
The People Who Are Still Here
I am not going to pretend everyone has abandoned ship because that is not true.
There are Nigerians who have decided they will keep using their voice and they do not care what that costs them. VeryDarkBlackMan gets mentioned a lot and he deserves to be. Put aside whatever you think about how he says things. The point is he says them. He shows up before it is fashionable to show up. He does not take a poll to see if it is safe before he speaks.
That kind of person needs more than a repost. They need to know that actual people are standing with them. Because speaking uncomfortable truth in Nigeria is genuinely not something to take lightly. People have lost things for it. Real things.
But we need that energy in so many more places. In the music. In the comedy. In the boardrooms and the markets and the mosques and the churches and the town halls. We need it to be consistent and not just reactive.
Close your eyes for a second and think about what this country starts to feel like if even a portion of the people with real platforms decide on the same day that they have had enough of being quiet.
For The People Leading This Country
Evans Charles did not hold back here and neither will I.
He said — to our leaders, we are begging you. Give us back the glory. Give us back the love. Give us back the Nigeria we were promised and the one we still believe is possible. We are not made of stone. We are tired.
Tired.
Not the loud angry tired. The quiet exhausted kind. The kind that does not shout because it does not have the energy left for shouting. The kind of tired that does not announce itself. It just quietly turns dreamers into people who are planning their exit. And the worst part is you understand it completely. How do you ask someone to keep building in a country that has spent years teaching them that nothing they build is guaranteed to still be there tomorrow.
Nigeria is bleeding now and the most painful thing about it is that none of this was inevitable. This country was not cursed from the beginning. It was not destined for this. What we are living through is the result of choices. Choices made by specific people. And the choice the rest of us made to stay quiet while those choices were being made.
Everybody says there is no place like home. And they mean it. You can feel it when Nigerians say it abroad, the way the words carry something. But you cannot love your home from a distance of comfortable silence while it is burning. That is not love. That is just nostalgia.
Something Small Is Still Something
You do not need a platform with a million followers. You do not need to be famous or connected or fearless in the big dramatic way.
You just have to start somewhere.
Post something true on your status today. Say something in your group chat that is actually about what is happening and not just a forward. Support the voices that are already speaking so loudly by yourself that you wear yourself out. And when you see someone who has the platform and the reach and is choosing to look away — name that. Politely if you can. Firmly if you have to. Nigeria is bleeding now
The World Bank is reporting that more than 40 percent of Nigerians are below the poverty line as of right now. In a country that produces oil every single day. In a country with fertile land and hardworking people and more potential than most places on earth. The wealth is being made. It is just not reaching the people. (Source: worldbank.org)
That 40 percent is not a statistic to argue about on Twitter. It is the man who repairs shoes outside your office. It is a little girl somewhere who is smart enough to change things if someone would just give her a chance. It is real and it is now.
Nigeria is bleeding. It has been for a while. And the only question left that matters is what each of us is going to do about it with what we have.
Which way Nigeria?
God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
— Inspired by a piece written by Evans Charles
Your turn.
Who has let you down the most with their silence? A pastor? A celebrity? A politician you actually believed in at some point?
And what are you doing — anything at all, big or small — to not be part of the silence yourself?
Drop it in the comments. Share this with someone who needs to read it. Put it on your status. Send it to the group chat that always goes quiet when things get real.
Someone needs this today. It might even be you.
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