The myth of Nigerian helplessness, By Odoh Diego Okenyodo
Nigerians are not as powerless as we often claim to be. We know how to mobilise when an issue touches our faith or ethnic sentiment. We only play the victim when we do not wish to act, when the issue is civic, not religious; constitutional, not emotional…. Over the years, we have watched countless violations of the law, corruption scandals, and abuses of power without sustained outrage. But the moment a religious narrative enters the scene, passion ignites. It is as if our civic conscience is asleep until religion wakes it up.
The ongoing debate about whether there is a “Christian genocide” in Nigeria exposes a deeper flaw in our national psychology. It is not simply a question of facts or figures about violence; it is about what Nigerians choose to care about, and what we consistently ignore.
Across social media and public discussions, emotions have run high. Accusations and counter-accusations fly from both sides, not necessarily in pursuit of truth, but to defend religious identities. The venom that accompanies these debates is telling: When religion is mentioned, Nigerians are quick to take sides, to speak up, to fight. Yet, when the Constitution is violated or the rule of law trampled upon, there is silence.
Legally, genocide is supposed to include a range of acts committed with the intent to annihilate groups, including killing members of the group, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions to physically destroy the group, imposing measures to prevent births within the group, and forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. This definition is recognised under international law as per the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted in 1948 and enforced starting in 1951. The crime of genocide is distinct in its focus on the intent to destroy specific groups, making it one of the gravest crimes against humanity. To that extent, someone might point to the killing of Christians as one religious group targeted, but are those claims being made in comparison to the number of persons from other religious groups being killed?
If Nigerians could summon half the energy we pour into religious disputes and direct it toward defending our laws, demanding accountability, and protecting constitutional rights, the country would be far different from what it is today.
The root of the Christian genocide debate itself is where the problem lies. While the United States government, with its megaphone, addressed the issue in terms that “until it gets to the scale of a genocide, we don’t need to act”, we need not have taken that bait. Our debate over whether or whether not there is a genocide is helping the government and all duty bearers sit pretty. Should any citizen/anyone be killed in the way they have been with almost no response? Imagine the way soldiers lose their lives due to sabotage and the President pardons the person that diverted arms and ammunition to insurgents. The President’s action spoke a lot, and our reaction, debating genocide, does more. I’ve lost count of the number of times when 200 innocent lives or more were taken in one insurgent attack in Zamfara, Borno, Plateau, Benue, Kaduna, and the people were from different faiths. Are these genocide or crimes against humanity? Whatever the name, people are losing lives and their humanity.
Last year, citizens were killed in Abuja, a few kilometres from Aso Rock, the seat of power, but our military spent resources shutting down an entire shopping mall for over a month, positioning men and armoured tanks at the mall. Why? On the same day that the bandits killed people, two soldiers engaged in a fight with a phone seller at the mall, because they wanted a refund for a detective phone that one of them bought, and the seller was unwilling to. This is how national security is prioritised. And unfortunately, our debate of the scale that would constitute a genocide helps the abnormality to continue. But we are willing to keep quiet when those killed are not of our faith or ethnicity.
This contrast reveals something uncomfortable. Nigerians are not as powerless as we often claim to be. We know how to mobilise when an issue touches our faith or ethnic sentiment. We only play the victim when we do not wish to act, when the issue is civic, not religious; constitutional, not emotional.
Over the years, we have watched countless violations of the law, corruption scandals, and abuses of power without sustained outrage. But the moment a religious narrative enters the scene, passion ignites. It is as if our civic conscience is asleep until religion wakes it up.
The real crisis is not only about religion or alleged genocide; it is about a people who have grown comfortable with inaction, who mistake endurance for virtue, and who choose emotion over principle. Until we begin to care as deeply about constitutional violations as we do about religious ones, Nigeria will remain a country ruled more by sentiment than by law.
This selective outrage is dangerous. It shifts our moral compass away from justice and toward identity. It blinds us to the fact that both Christians and Muslims — and those of other faiths — suffer from the same failures of governance, the same insecurity, and the same disregard for the Constitution that is meant to protect us all.
If Nigerians could summon half the energy we pour into religious disputes and direct it toward defending our laws, demanding accountability, and protecting constitutional rights, the country would be far different from what it is today.
The real crisis is not only about religion or alleged genocide; it is about a people who have grown comfortable with inaction, who mistake endurance for virtue, and who choose emotion over principle. Until we begin to care as deeply about constitutional violations as we do about religious ones, Nigeria will remain a country ruled more by sentiment than by law. This is why a citizen defends himself against an armed attacker, kills the armed attacker, but gets a death sentence and the President won’t pardon him, but a saboteur of our fight against insurgency gets pardoned, and the citizens are quiet.
Odoh Diego Okenyodo is the CEO of Abuja-based Akweya TV Limited. Email: [email protected]