By Lilian Chudey Pride
There are mornings in Nigeria when the air feels chocking and everything else seems strangely split in two.
On one side, there are “Happy New Month” messages flying across phones. “Congratulations, we made it!” “This month shall favour you!”, beautiful, hopeful words typed with faith and habit.
On the other side, there is a silence that screams louder than the evil thereof.
A cold silence carrying the names of children who left home for school and did not return.
A chilling silence echoing the footsteps of frightened parents pacing to and fro the school gates.
A silence holding teachers who once wrote on chalkboards and are now reduced to headlines of horror.
In the middle of this painful contrast sits a nation trying to smile while bleeding, this Nigeria, where life is already layered with diverse struggles.
The recent wave of abduction of school children, students, their teachers, and school leaders in Oyo state has opened wounds that will never fully heal. One of the most heartbreaking part of it is the brutal killing of the mathematics teacher which has left many not just grieving, but questioning whether safety itself still has meaning.
Yet, life continues publicly as if nothing is breaking privately.
Elections are approaching. Aspirations are being announced. Alliances are being formed. Campaigns are being rehearsed. Public figures, political actors, elites, and those seeking office are moving across stages with promises, slogans, and carefully packaged hope.
The nation is watching, scrolling, reacting while families somewhere are still waiting for children who may never walk through the door again.
It raises questions that refuse to maintain a polite tone anymore.
How do we send “Happy New Month” greetings while some mothers are unable to sleep because their children are missing?
How do we celebrate a new calendar page while other families are stuck in the worst chapter of their lives, faraway in he forests?
A situation they did not choose and cannot close.
What exactly does “new month” mean in a country where some lives have not moved forward in weeks, because they are still trapped in fear, uncertainty, and endless waiting?
To those in leadership and influence, government institutions, traditional rulers, community leaders, faith leaders and clerics, what is the collective response beyond statements and condolences?
What is being done differently this time?
What systems have changed since the last abduction?
What intelligence failed again?
What protection was absent again?
And perhaps the most painful question of all:
How many more names must be added before urgency becomes action instead of reaction?
Where are the custodians of community safety? The traditional authorities who once held deep moral influence over land and people?
Where are the voices of the so-called spiritual gatekeepers who speak loudly in moments of comfort but seem quieter in moments of crisis?
Where are the communities whose unity used to be the first line of protection for their children and vulnerable individuals?
To ordinary citizens, those sharing prayers, reposts, hashtags, and condolences, what is our responsibility beyond empathy expressed online?
Because silence, even when unintentional, can begin to feel like acceptance.
Who is next?
This is not a call for panic. It is a call for conscience.
A nation cannot thrive when its children are unsafe in classrooms. Education cannot exist meaningfully when schools become places of horror.
And society cannot heal when tragedy becomes routine enough to compete with political campaign posters and festive greetings.
The real question is not whether Nigeria has problems, that is already known.
The question is whether Nigeria is still shocked enough by its own pain to demand change that is structural, not seasonal.
Because if abductions become background noise, and killings become passing headlines,
grief becomes normal, then something deeper than insecurity is broken. Hope.
Hope is not meant to be passive but active, it is meant to provoke responsibility.
What if every community demanded a functioning safety plan for every school in its vicinity?
What if traditional institutions reclaimed active moral authority to protect vulnerable spaces?
What if religious spaces became coordination points for accountability, not only comfort?
What if political ambition was matched with measurable security commitments before votes are requested?
What if citizens refused to normalize tragedy by refusing silence, even when headlines fade?
These are not perfect answers. But they are better than resigning to fate.
To the families waiting, your pains are both seen and valid even when the world scrolls past.
To the children who were taken, your absence is not forgotten, even when life appears to continue.
To the teacher whose life was brutally cut short, your sacrifice is a wound that should not be forgotten but remembered by justice and reform.
And to everyone else reading this: a new month should not only be a greeting. It should be a reminder that time moves forward, and accountability and responsibility must move with it.
A nation that wishes itself well must also choose to do well for its most vulnerable people, otherwise, the words we repeat every month will slowly lose meaning
until they become nothing more than messages sent over a grief we no longer feel enough to change.
From a bleeding heart,
Lilian Chudey Pride
