Human life is meant to be priceless because of its incomparable worth and sacredness. Sadly, in Nigeria today, the lives of citizens have become distressingly cheap!
Since waves of organised criminalities erupted into a full-scale national crisis around 2018, the intrinsic worth of the life of a Nigerian citizen has been systematically eroded, not only by the bullets and machetes of bandits, armed herdsmen, and unknown gunmen, but by the silence of a government that has largely turned a blind eye to crimes against its citizens.
Rights Trampled in Plain Sight
The catalogue of violations is relentless. The right to life is violated daily, as bandits raid villages, kill men before their families, rape women, and abduct school children for ransoms.
The right to security has collapsed, as major highways like Abuja-Kaduna have become death traps, and farmers have been chased from their ancestral lands and their rights to livelihood destroyed by invaders.
Today across Nigeria, women and girls suffer sexual slavery in camps bandits and numerous cells of terrorists – a brutal assault on human dignity never experienced in Nigeria!
In the North-West and North-Central, armed herdsmen burn entire communities to ashes. In the South- East, unknown gunmen kill security personnel and civilians alike, imposing terror with impunity. In the South-West, the marauders have turned rich agricultural farmlands to deserted territories.
The Government’s Blind Eye
The most painful truth is that these atrocities persist not from lack of capacity but lack of political will by the government of the day to do the needful to secure our lands and people.
The APC-controlled federal government has:
- paid ransoms repeatedly instead of mounting decisive military campaigns, thereby fueling more kidnappings.
- offered amnesties to bandits, who, after the photo ops of the shenanigans, promptly returned to crime.
- criminalized victims arresting vigilante groups while bandits roam free.
- responded with silence or empty phrases like “security challenges,” while mass abductions go unpunished.
The foregoing is selective outrage. A village massacre in Zamfara barely makes the news headlines; it is only when violence creeps near the nation’s capital that the president speaks.
The message is clear: rural lives matter less to those in power!
The SDP’s Role As The Credible Alternative
Amid the national failure, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) has strongly and creditably positioned itself as a national political party that is ready to lead a “rescue mission” for Nigeria.
Unlike the ruling party’s reactive approach, the SDP offers a clear, people-centred vision for restoring security and upholding human rights and the dignity of life and living.
The SDP’s proposed actions include:
- Addressing root causes of violence: The SDP insists that security can not be achieved by reactive force alone. It requires tackling the poverty, inequality, and marginalisation that fuel all forms of criminalities . As recently stated by the SDP National Chairman, Dr. Sadiq Umar Abubakar Gombe, the government “must make citizens’ safety a top priority by addressing the root causes of violence and instability.”
- Ending political control of security: SDP presidential candidate Prince Adewole Adebayo has argued that insecurity persists because “politicians” are put in charge of security, leading to corruption and incompetence rather than results. He promises that as commander in-chief, he would “stop using security agencies to solve political problems.”
- Demanding accountability and transparency: The SDP has called on Nigerians to hold leaders accountable, stressing that governance must be driven by “integrity, vision, and responsiveness to citizens’ needs.” The party has also taken internal disciplinary action against corrupt officials, demonstrating its commitment to transparency .
- A coalition of the people, not politicians: The SDP rejects the “recycling” of old politicians under new platforms, insisting that genuine change requires a movement built on grassroots engagement, youth empowerment, and community participation .
- Practical, issue based solutions: Rather than mere criticism, the SDP offers workable alternatives on security, education, economic diversification, and job creation . Prince Adebayo has also visited violence hit communities in Plateau State to assess the humanitarian situation firsthand, criticising the government’s “symbolic gestures” instead of direct engagement .
Reclaiming The Worth of Human Life
The worth of human life is measured by what a government will risk to save it.
Today, millions of Nigerians across the cities and rural communities live in great despair, fear of dangers than lock around them, and they are unable to farm, travel, or sleep peacefully. Their rights have been trampled not only by agents of death but by a state that has chosen to look away.
The SDP offers a different path: one where security prioritised, not politicised; where root causes are addressed, and where the life of every Nigerian, whether in a city or a forgotten village, is treated as priceless.
Considering that this government lacks the capacity to deliver on its statutory duty, the SDP assures Nigerians that it stands ready as the only credible alternative political party to offer the leadership that Nigeria and Nigerians deserve.
The silence must end, and the blind eye must open. Human life must, once again, become sacred in Nigeria.
The SDP is deeply troubled by the atrocious crimes being committed daily by non-state actors against humanity in unprecedented scale. It therefore, once again declare, as it recently did, that this present government has failed in its statutory duty according to Chapter 2, Section 14 (2) (b) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended), which provides that security and welfare of the people is the primary purpose of government.
The SDP is greatly alarmed by the World Bank Report, which places Nigeria’s current poverty rate at 63%, with over 140 million Nigerians living below the poverty line; the worsening insecurity and widespread violence; severe corruption and poor governance, which combine to exercabate unemployment and low productivity in the nation’s informal sector which engages a vast majority of the Nigerian population; increased cost of living, and a generally poor infrastructure architecture which hinders economic growth, and brings about wide social inequalities.
Considering, therefore, the dire situation of Nigeria, the SDP calls on Nigerian electorate to be intentional and deliberate in taking back their country from the suffocating grips of the present administrators of our national life, whose policies lack the essential human face. The Party submits that it is the best interest of Nigeria and Nigerians not to reinforce the failure. The APC needs to be rejected at the polls in January 2027, having put up an underwhelming performance in the last eleven years.
A total rejection of the APC is the only way to take away the prevailing reign of hopelessness, and bring about national transformation to create a better life for the people, secure a good Nigerian society for posterity, and make the country take its rightful place as the true giant of Africa and the pride of the black race.
The first quarter of 2027 is a critical juncture and defining moment for national redemption. As a nation that is undeniably in desperate condition, we must not miss the opportunity of pulling the country back from the edge of precipice and place its feet on the path of greatness.
Ahead of the 2027 general elections, the SDP is already in top gear, mobilizing a massive Nigerian People’s Movement for the national rescue mission, and sensitizing the electorate across the North and South, not to fall for any cheap propaganda and rhetoric of a need for “continuity” or “consolidation.”
The APC must take its foot off the necks of Nigerians and allow them to breathe.
Signed:
Araba Rufus Aiyenigba,
National Publicity Secretary, SDP.
