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There are nations that struggle, and there are nations that sabotage themselves. Nigeria, tragically, has mastered the latter art with a chilling consistency that defies logic, conscience, and even survival instinct.
It is no longer merely a country in distress; it has become a menacing evil forest, dense, foreboding, and cannibalistic, where hope enters but rarely returns alive.
In folklore, the evil forest was a place of abandonment, where the unwanted, the cursed and the condemned were thrown, never to be seen again. Today, Nigeria has assumed that grim identity, not as a myth, but as a living, breathing reality where citizens are sacrificed daily on the altar of greed, incompetence, and calculated indifference.
With all its vast natural endowments: oil-rich soils, fertile lands, an energetic population, and a strategic place in Africa’s destiny, Nigeria has absolutely no business being so described or so tragically defined by sprawling poverty, simmering hate, and an almost ritualistic propensity for bloodshed. This is not the fate of a cursed land, but the consequence of a captured one.
At the heart of this paradox stands a voracious, shape-shifting Frankenstein elite, political merchants and power brokers, who have perfected the dark art of survival by division. They stoke ethnic embers into infernos, weaponise religion, and pit neighbour against neighbour, all while feasting comfortably on the chaos they engineer. While the poor are mobilised to fight, kill, and die over identities and illusions, the elite quietly harvest the dividends of disorder: oil blocks, inflated contracts, security votes, constituency projects, and foreign accounts fattened by the very blood spilled on Nigeria’s coarse and grieving soil.
The tragedy of Nigeria is not that evil exists; it does everywhere, but that it thrives, organises itself, institutionalises its presence, and feeds fat on the helplessness of the people. Corruption here is not a deviation; it is a system. It is the bloodstream through which power circulates. It is the silent constitution that overrides every written law.
Public office in Nigeria is no longer a platform for service; it is an investment portfolio. Elections are not contests of ideas but auctions of influence. Governance has been reduced to a transactional enterprise where loyalty is purchased, accountability is negotiated, and justice is perpetually deferred.
Nepotism has entrenched itself so deeply into the Nigerian fabric that merit now gasps for air. Appointments are no longer made based on competence but on connections, ethnic, political, or personal. The result is a leadership structure that is not only inefficient but dangerously incapable of addressing the country’s most pressing challenges.
Ethnicism, that ancient fault line, has been weaponised with renewed vigour. Rather than serve as a tapestry of diversity, Nigeria’s ethnic plurality has become a battlefield of suspicion and hostility. Every policy is viewed through the lens of “us versus them.” Every appointment sparks accusations of marginalisation, and not without cause. National unity, once a hopeful aspiration, now feels like a tired slogan repeated out of obligation rather than conviction.
And then there is the bloodletting, the most horrifying testament to Nigeria’s descent into chaos. Across the country, from the forests of the North to the communities of the Middle Belt and beyond, life has become frighteningly cheap. Bandits, insurgents, and criminal networks operate with a boldness that suggests not just impunity, but complicity.
The war against terrorism, once declared with chest-thumping resolve, now appears compromised, inconsistent, and disturbingly ineffective. How else does one explain a situation where heavily armed non-state actors repeatedly outmaneuver, outgun, and humiliate the very forces meant to protect the nation?
The stories are as heartbreaking as they are infuriating. Soldiers, young men and women who swore to defend the country, are sent into battle with inadequate equipment, poor intelligence, and often, questionable leadership. They fight not just an enemy in the shadows but a system that seems indifferent to their survival.
The recent killing of Brig-Gen Oseni Braimah; and four other senior officers within days in Borno, is one such painful reminder. They lost their lives in daring raids on soldiers, not just to the enemy’s firepower, but reportedly because the system could not shield them at critical moments. It is a sad tale that stings deeply, because it encapsulates the Nigerian tragedy in one cruel snapshot: a soldier abandoned not just by fate, but by failure.
This is not an isolated incident. It echoes the painful memories of officers like Commanding Officer, Lt. Col. Umar Farooq, whose death raised uncomfortable questions about the vulnerabilities within Nigeria’s security architecture. These are not just names; they are symbols of a deeper rot, a system that consumes its defenders while pretending to honour them.
What makes it even more disturbing is the deafening silence that follows such incidents. There are cyclic statements, of course, carefully worded, politically safe, and quickly forgotten. There are promises of investigation, often buried under the weight of bureaucracy. But there is rarely accountability. Rarely consequence. Rarely change.
Meanwhile, those in the corridors of power appear fixated on a different battle entirely: the battle for 2027. While citizens bury their dead, politicians are busy burying their ambitions in strategic alliances, defections, and endless permutations of power. The future of Nigeria, it seems, is less important than the future of political careers.
This obsession with elections, even in the face of national emergency, speaks volumes. It reveals a political class that is disconnected from the realities of the people it claims to represent. It exposes a leadership that sees governance not as a responsibility but as a stepping stone to the next contest.
In this evil forest, the ordinary Nigerian is the ultimate victim. The farmer who cannot access his land for fear of attack. The trader who pays multiple levies to survive. The student whose dreams are interrupted by strikes and insecurity. The soldier who goes to war unsure of returning, not because of the enemy alone, but because of the system behind him.
Even the institutions meant to provide refuge, law enforcement, the legislature and judiciary, regulatory bodies, have not been spared. They, too, are entangled in the web capture and compromise, struggling to assert independence in an environment where pressure is constant and integrity is costly.
The media reports the horrors, civil society protests them, and citizens lament them, but the cycle continues, relentless and unforgiving. Each new outrage briefly captures attention before being swallowed by the next. Outrage fatigue has set in. Tragedy has become routine.
What, then, becomes of hope?
It flickers, faint and fragile, in the resilience of Nigerians who refuse to give up. It survives in small acts of courage, in voices that still dare to speak, in communities that still find ways to endure. But even hope, in this environment, feels like a burden, something that must be constantly defended against the crushing weight of reality.
The danger is not just that Nigeria is failing; it is that Nigerians are beginning to accept the failure as inevitable. That the abnormal has become normal. That the evil forest is no longer feared, but tolerated.
History teaches that nations do not collapse overnight. They erode, slowly, steadily, almost imperceptibly, until one day, the weight of accumulated dysfunction becomes unbearable. Nigeria stands perilously close to that tipping point.
And yet, there is a troubling sense that those with the power to change the trajectory are either unwilling or unable to do so. Reform requires sacrifice. Accountability demands courage. Transformation calls for vision. These are qualities that seem in short supply within the current political ecosystem.
So, the forest grows darker. The shadows lengthen. The cries grow louder, then quieter, then forgotten.
Nigeria, the giant of Africa, now limps under the weight of its own contradictions. A land of immense wealth where poverty thrives. A nation of brilliant minds stifled by broken systems. A country rich in promise, yet trapped in a cycle of disappointment.
To call it an evil forest is not merely poetic; it is painfully descriptive. It is a place where dreams are lost, where lives are cut short, where the very structures meant to protect instead expose.
And, perhaps, the most haunting question of all is this: how long can a nation continue to devour its own before there is nothing left to consume?
For now, there are no clear answers. Only a growing sense that unless something fundamentally changes, the forest will keep feeding on its people, on its potential, and on its future, until even hope itself becomes another casualty.
