WHENEVER I want to remind myself of how mockingly polarizing our world is, one of my frequent reads is Lawrence Ferlinghetti's "The World is a Beautiful Place," because the poem makes for a perfect rendering of human paradoxes, both in its structure and devices. So, as I think about how Donald Trump's administration is politicking with the FIFA World Cup, as I look again at my country, Nigeria, human lives are still used for political gains, 33 years since June 12, I find myself returning to the poem. Ferlinghetti put it best:
The world is a beautiful place
to be born into
if you don't mind some people dying
all the time
or maybe only starving
some of the time
which isn't half so bad
if it isn't you (12–19)
But it could be you, it could be anybody. If you have enough money to travel, it could be you who is profiled by the United States as a potential security threat, especially if your faith is Islam or anything close. It does not matter whether or not you are cleared to participate by FIFA itself; the superstructure has its must-be-protected agenda.
It could be you if you are a Nigerian. You could get kidnapped, if not killed, at your house, your mosque or church, your school, or your place of work, it could be you on that bus, it could be you anywhere in any part of the country. But then, it will not matter to the politicians. You are a card in the sport of politics. It is more profitable to blame the kidnapping or murder on something reusable: poverty, low education, or some failure of morality.
You see, the one thing that connects whatever fun Trump is having in the White House with what Nigerian politicians are doing is the selective concern that people in power tend to show. In the guise of protecting the peace of the world, Trump has directly or indirectly interfered with the sovereignty of many countries. In case someone is forgetting, Nicholas Maduro was picked like a vulnerable fowl in a transparent cage, and the world had little to nothing to do about it. When kidnappers, bandits, and terrorists, or whatever name you have convinced yourself to call the human misfits we live with in Nigeria, do their anti-human things, Nigerian leaders are as vocal as the German hegemony against Donald Trump.
Just two days ago, President Tinubu disclosed in his Democracy Day speech that over 13,000 terrorists have been neutralized in the past year. Shortly after, news was rife that a former spokesperson for the Nigerian military, Major-General Rabe Abubakar, just died in the captivity of kidnappers. It is a humiliating Democracy Day gift for Nigeria. How ironic that a man who had attained one of the peaks of military service could only die as cheaply as that. It is like Brigadier General Oseni Braimah all over again, only now, media optics did not trail him alive.
That no life seems to matter again in Nigeria is no news, that politicians hardly care is no novelty either. Nigerians are chronically trapped in learned helplessness. Terror events have formed parts of our lives. We may not be sure who is getting kidnapped or killed next, but we are sure someone will be. We may not be able to tell where it will happen, but we can tell that it will happen to someone. This much is clear. What we should not learn to accept from Nigerian politicians, what the world must not let Trump and his political institution have, is the absolute surrender. That is if we hope to live normal lives.
You are a card in the sport of politics. It is more profitable to blame the kidnapping or murder on something reusable: poverty, low education, or some failure of morality.
When a politician can be so brazen to not mind his utterances and threatens the erasure of Iranian civilization; when, despite the killings in the country, the concerns are the next elections, then it is sure that political conquests matter more than human lives to them. For the citizens, it is much more than who or what is right or not, it is a question of whether or not they want to live. What rues the mind of the people is not the same as what concerns them. Monday Okpebholo of Edo State says it as it is in the mind of the APC power brokers: Even if they kidnap us all, there's no vacancy in Aso Rock. And what an interesting thing to say.
What does Mr Monday Okpebholo know about the sponsors of terrorism in Nigeria that informed that statement? Why is he so convinced that it is a political game? Does he know those who are behind the terror acts in such a way that enables him to decide their intents? What vacancy is there not at Aso Rock? Will insecurity end if Tinubu bowed to the scheming of the supposed sponsors? What does this outburst expose about the 2027 elections? Really, there is a train of thoughts to follow, but Mr. Monday is in the best position, in his Gumi-like audacity, to put facts to his statement.
Will facts even matter? I am doubtful. The pre-existing data have not mattered to political actors in the country. Not in the way that many expect. It is a fact that thousands of Nigerians have been killed, some kidnapped for ransom, yet every now and then, instead of provoking punitive measures, it has instead led to rehabilitation. Just this month, the Borno State Government reintegrated over 700 "low-risk, repentant" terrorists and about 4,000 of their family members into society in the 9th Batch of the deradicalisation program which had reintegrated about 8,960 ex-terrorists. It is farcical to think of, considering the fact that terrorist attacks still happen in the said state and elsewhere.
What is most mind boggling is that these terrorists fought with religious colorations, in manners that have made Muslims across the country be seen as potential dangers, yet the government often disregards the Islamic position on terror acts. The repentance of a terrorist does not exclude him from the forgiveness of Almighty Allah if He chooses to forgive him; it is just not up to governments to reward him for that. What recompense does that give the family of the dead and the kidnapped? What victory is in letting a terrorist live?
The repentance of a terrorist does not exclude him from the forgiveness of Almighty Allah if He chooses to forgive him; it is just not up to governments to reward him for that.
When the government declares victory, it seems more or less like peace as described in Ferlinghetti's poem or like the many times that Nobel-hunting Trump declared the Iran war won by him. Undoubtedly, those who call the shots are entertained. The only time they are not is when any of their own falls victim. What follows is usually swift, intentional, and obliterating. When former Minister Adelabu's sister and his twins were kidnapped, the media frenzy nearly equaled the unfortunate Oríire kidnapping, but the more interesting aspect is how their rescue operation went. When an American soldier was trapped on Iranian soil during the 2026 Iran War, the rescue operation was a delight to DJT.
Palestinian children have no frenzy to their murders, the world has grown accustomed to the news. Donald Trump will, on the one hand, strengthen the Zionist regime and, on the other hand, ask that peace reign. We see the playbook better in Iran. Nigerian children have no one to tag to their names; they are reported as "37," not as "cousins of a former minister," or as "relatives" of any name known to power. We see the playbook from Chibok to Oríire. Helplessly so.
What we must not allow, ultimately, is to cave in. It is likely that we do not win in the fight for survival, but we must fight still—in fighting, there is first a life of choice and bravery before death; in not fighting, there is a certain death that the oppressor will dramatise on historical pages for future generations to see. Just as footballers contend for local and international leagues, our fights are in our native locales as much as they are on the world stage. The Minab school children are Chibok girls: it is the sport of politics that makes one lot a subject of freedom calls, while the other is seen as collateral damage. Okpebholo's gatekeeping of Aso Rock in a climate of insecurity is no different from Trump's denial of a referee into the World Cup; it is politics of sports, and these players know their balls, outcries be damned.
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