Niger’s 37 Dead: When Poverty Meets the Failure of the State, by Boniface Ihiasota 

I can’t understand how about 37 people died in the custody of the state within hours of being arrested for allegedly engaging in illegal mining. It is unsettling not merely because of the number of lives lost, but because of what the incident in Minna, Niger State, says about the relationship between poverty, law enforcement and the Nigerian state.

Between September 15 and 16, 2026, the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps reportedly arrested scores of suspected illegal miners during enforcement operations in the M.I. Wushishi and Lukoto areas of Minna. On Thursday, September 17, 37 of those detained were found dead in NSCDC custody. The exact cause of death has not been conclusively established. The NSCDC initially referred to a suspected disease outbreak, while survivors alleged that overcrowding and poor ventilation caused detainees to struggle for breath. The bodies were taken to the General Hospital, Minna, for medical examination and autopsy.

In a country where public outrage can quickly become a substitute for evidence, the temptation is to pronounce judgment before investigators establish what happened. But there is an equally dangerous temptation to hide behind an investigation when the circumstances demand immediate accountability. The men and boys who died were suspects, not convicts.

Even if every one of them had been guilty of illegal mining, the state had a duty to keep them alive and treat them humanely while they were in custody. The law does not confer a licence to punish suspects outside the judicial process. A person does not lose his right to life because he has been accused of breaking the law.

Niger State is endowed with gold and other mineral resources, but much of the artisanal mining economy exists at the intersection of poverty, unemployment, weak regulation and insecurity. For many young Nigerians, particularly in impoverished communities, mining is not an ideological rebellion against the state. It is often a desperate attempt to make money where legitimate economic opportunities are scarce.

That does not make illegal mining lawful. It does, however, make the phenomenon more complicated than a security problem.

Some reports have indicated that several of those detained were between 14 and 18 years old. Women in Mining Nigeria has called for the ages and identities of the deceased to be independently verified, alongside independent monitoring of autopsies. If the presence of children among those arrested is confirmed, another uncomfortable question emerges: where were the schools, families, social protection systems and economic alternatives that should have kept children away from hazardous mining sites? Nigeria cannot police poverty out of existence.

The protests that followed the deaths in Minna on Friday, September 18, further demonstrated how quickly mistrust between citizens and security agencies can turn tragedy into confrontation. The Niger State Government imposed a curfew as unrest spread, while police and other security personnel were deployed.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu subsequently directed a comprehensive investigation. On September 19, Interior Minister Olubunmi Tunji-Ojo announced a 10-member independent committee chaired by retired DSS Deputy Director-General Jonathan Kure, with Professor Isa Hayatu Chiroma, SAN, as secretary. Professor Olayinka Buhari, a histopathologist and former Chief Medical Director of the University of Ilorin Teaching Hospital, is among the members. The committee is expected to establish the identities of the dead, examine their arrest and detention, determine the circumstances of their deaths and identify any negligence or misconduct. Twenty-one NSCDC officers, including the Niger State Commandant, Suberu Siyaka Aniviye, have also been suspended pending the investigation.

That investigation must be more than another government exercise that produces a report and then disappears into an archive. The families deserve names. They deserve facts. They deserve to know how their relatives died. And where wrongdoing is established, they deserve justice.

There is a mining economy that needs regulation rather than perpetual chaos; communities that need legitimate livelihoods; children who need schools instead of mine sites; and security institutions that need stronger standards for detention, medical response, ventilation and protection of human life.

The lesson from Minna is therefore not simply that illegal mining must be stopped. It is that enforcement without institutional responsibility can produce another tragedy while attempting to prevent one.

A government that asks citizens to obey the law must demonstrate that those enforcing the law are equally bound by it.

From the Diaspora, this is perhaps the most troubling reflection: the true measure of a state is not how forcefully it can arrest the vulnerable, but how responsibly it treats them after they fall into its hands.

The 37 who died in Minna should not become another statistic in Nigeria’s long catalogue of preventable deaths. Their deaths should become a test of whether accountability in Nigeria is capable of reaching those who wield the authority of the state.

Because when a suspect enters government custody, the responsibility of government does not diminish. It begins.

Kaduna’s Security Question, by Alabidun Shuaib AbdulRahman

There are some arguments in Nigeria that should never be allowed to remain where they began. They start on television, move to social media, acquire partisan colours and eventually disappear beneath the next political controversy. But the recent exchange between the Minister of Defence, General Christopher Musa, and former Kaduna State Governor, Nasir El-Rufai, is too serious to be treated that way. It touches something much deeper than the political relationship between two men. It touches Kaduna. And Kaduna has a long memory.

On September 3, 2026, Musa appeared on Channels Television’s Politics Today and spoke in unusually strong terms about El-Rufai’s years as governor. He accused the former governor of dividing Kaduna, creating a situation in which people from the southern part of the state could not freely live in the northern part and vice versa. More seriously, Musa said he could not be happy with somebody who had “deliberately planned” the killing of his people in Southern Kaduna. He also referred to El-Rufai’s past comments about payments made to people involved in the violence. If I must say, that is a very heavy allegation to come from a serving Minister of Defence.

El-Rufai’s family has demanded that Musa produce evidence to substantiate the allegation or retract it within seven days, while his lawyers have also demanded an apology and compensation. That response is understandable. But it should not end the conversation. In fact, it should begin a more serious one.

Musa has a responsibility to explain what he meant and, more importantly, what evidence supports it. If he possesses intelligence reports, official communications, witnesses, operational records or any other material capable of establishing that a former governor deliberately planned killings, Nigerians deserve to know that such evidence exists and that it is being properly investigated. If there is no evidence, then the allegation should be withdrawn.

This is not about protecting El-Rufai. It is about protecting the credibility of public office. A Defence Minister cannot make an allegation of this magnitude and expect Nigerians to treat it as ordinary political rhetoric. The office he occupies gives his words an institutional weight that cannot simply be separated from the Nigerian security establishment. Yet, while Musa must answer for the allegation he has made, El-Rufai cannot reasonably expect his own record in Kaduna to be placed beyond examination.

When Nasir El-Rufai became governor in May 2015, he inherited a state already deeply fractured by years of ethnic, religious and communal crises. Southern Kaduna had experienced serious violence before he arrived at Government House. The historical grievances surrounding Zangon Kataf, Kaura, Kauru, Jema’a, Kajuru, Kachia and neighbouring areas were not created by his administration.

This clarification is important because political arguments often suffer from selective memory. A governor can inherit a problem without creating it. But once he governs a state for eight years, he must also accept responsibility for the decisions made under his watch and for the outcomes of those decisions. El-Rufai governed Kaduna between 2015 and 2023. During that period, the state witnessed some of its most painful episodes of communal violence and the gradual entrenchment of banditry and kidnapping.

In November 2016, violence in parts of Southern Kaduna killed dozens of people and displaced thousands. The government responded with security deployments, arrests and attempts at dialogue. The following month, El-Rufai said his administration had traced some of those involved in the violence to neighbouring countries and other parts of the Sahel. He also spoke publicly about compensation and payments intended to resolve disputes and persuade some of those involved to stop the violence.

That admission has become part of the political argument today because there is a significant difference between a government negotiating with people involved in violence, compensating victims or making payments as part of an attempt to end hostilities, and deliberately planning the killing of citizens. The first can be debated as a matter of public policy. The second is a grave allegation that requires proof.

The clarity matters because Nigeria has become dangerously comfortable with treating allegations as facts whenever they suit a political narrative. That is what Kaduna has suffered from for too long.

The violence in Kajuru in February 2019 is a good example. Scores of people were killed in attacks and reprisals involving communities in the area. The casualty figures and competing narratives differed, as they often do in communal conflicts, but the underlying reality was unmistakable: people were killed, homes were destroyed and communities were pushed deeper into fear and distrust.

Those who lived through that period do not need politicians to remind them that Kaduna was bleeding. What they need is an honest explanation of why the state has continued to experience violence despite years of government intervention. That question becomes even more important because the insecurity did not disappear with El-Rufai’s departure from office.

He left Government House on May 29, 2023. On March 7, 2024, gunmen attacked schools in Kuriga, in Chikun Local Government Area, and abducted schoolchildren and teachers. Initial reports put the number of abducted pupils at 287, although subsequent official figures placed the number at 137. The victims were eventually rescued in Zamfara State on March 24.

Kuriga was more than another kidnapping incident. It was a reminder that Kaduna’s security crisis had outlived the administration that had governed the state for eight years.

Also, in March 2024, residents of Kajuru Station in Kajuru Local Government Area reported that gunmen had abducted scores of people in yet another attack on the community. It was another illustration of the vulnerability of rural Kaduna, where communities are often separated from major security formations by difficult terrain, poor roads and vast stretches of forest.

By July 2026, the situation remained sufficiently dangerous to produce another tragedy in Kauru Local Government Area. Residents reported that at least 30 people, including eight children, were killed when attackers invaded Naridon village. Houses were burnt and the attackers reportedly escaped before security forces arrived. Thirty people. Eight of them children. That should be enough to remind everyone that the argument over El-Rufai is only one small part of a much larger problem.

The family that loses a father in Naridon does not care whether the responsibility lies with a former governor, the current governor, the Federal Government or a local security commander. The parents of the children abducted from Kuriga did not care which political party was in power. They wanted their children back. That is the human dimension that is often lost when Kaduna becomes a subject of political debate.

The danger of discussing insecurity exclusively through the language of political blame is that it creates the illusion that removing one person will solve the problem. Kaduna’s experience proves otherwise. El-Rufai left. The insecurity remained. Although it might not be like before.

Governor Uba Sani inherited it. The military continued its operations. Security agencies continued to deploy personnel. Yet communities continued to experience attacks, kidnapping and displacement. This does not absolve El-Rufai of responsibility for his own administration. It simply demonstrates that the crisis is bigger than him. The same argument applies to Uba Sani.

He cannot be blamed for creating a problem that predates him, but after more than three years in office, his administration must also be judged by whether it is succeeding in making vulnerable communities safer.

The Federal Government must face the same lense of scrutiny. General Christopher Musa (rtd) himself understands the complexity of the problem. As Chief of Defence Staff, he acknowledged the difficulties faced by security forces in dealing with kidnappers and armed groups operating from vast forests. Intelligence failures, misinformation from informants, difficult terrain and the mobility of criminal networks have repeatedly complicated military operations.

That is perhaps closer to the real Kaduna problem than the political argument currently dominating public discussion. The state does not merely have a problem of soldiers. It has a problem of intelligence. It has a problem of policing. It has a problem of criminal networks. It has a problem of porous borders and weapons trafficking. It has a problem of forests that provide concealment. It has a problem of communities that sometimes fear security agencies almost as much as they fear criminals. And it has a problem of trust.

The other problem is that Kaduna’s insecurity cannot be reduced to religion. Religion has undoubtedly shaped some of the state’s historical conflicts, and ethnic identity has often been weaponised. But the contemporary security crisis is also deeply connected to criminality, land disputes, cattle rustling, kidnapping for ransom, illegal arms flows and the economics of rural insecurity.

As expected of him, Musa should provide evidence for his allegation against El-Rufai. If the evidence exists, it should be investigated without fear or favour. If it does not, the allegation should be withdrawn. El-Rufai, on the other hand, should accept that his administration’s security policies and decisions will remain legitimate subjects of public scrutiny. The passage of time does not erase the record of a government.

Governor Uba Sani must equally accept that inheriting insecurity is not an excuse for allowing it to become permanent and the Federal Government must recognise that Kaduna is not merely another state requiring periodic military deployments. It is one of the places where Nigeria’s entire security architecture is being tested.

The country needs to understand the networks behind the violence, not merely the men carrying rifles. It needs to know who finances them, who supplies weapons, who provides information, who negotiates ransom and who benefits from communities being driven away from their farms. Until that ecosystem is dismantled, Nigeria may continue to defeat individual criminal groups without defeating the criminal economy that produces them.

Alabidun is a media practitioner and can be reached via alabidungoldenson@gmail.com

The Dark Lessons From Anambra, by Boniface Ihiasota 

There are crimes that shock a society because they violate the law, and there are others that leave a deeper wound because they violate the very foundations on which society is built. The disturbing case involving a 36-year-old woman, Anulika Onyeanusia, in Onitsha, Anambra State, belongs to the latter category.

On Friday, September 11, 2026, the Anambra State Police Command confirmed Onyeanusia’s arrest after a disturbing video allegedly showed her sexually abusing a minor with sex toys. Police spokesperson, SP Tochukwu Ikenga, said operatives also rescued four children, aged two, three, six and nine, and recovered sex toys and other items believed to be relevant to the investigation. Her husband was also being questioned to establish whether he had any connection with the alleged offence.

That is what is officially established. Other reports have carried additional allegations, including claims that more than one daughter was abused and that some of the material was uploaded to a pornographic platform for money. Those claims should remain allegations until investigators establish the facts. The identities of the children should equally remain protected.

But beyond the police investigation lies a larger question: what happens to a society when the place where a child expects protection becomes the place of greatest danger?

In many Nigerian cultures, motherhood is surrounded by a moral reverence that goes beyond biology. The mother is expected to be the first teacher, protector and emotional refuge. The family home, despite its imperfections, is traditionally regarded as the child’s safest space. To sexually exploit a child within that space is therefore not merely an individual moral failure. It represents a profound betrayal of trust.

Culture, however, cannot be invoked selectively. Respect for motherhood cannot become a shield against accountability, just as the preservation of family reputation must never be placed above the protection of a child. A family that hides abuse to avoid shame does not preserve its honour; it transfers the shame to the victim and allows the violence to continue.

The psychological consequences can be devastating. A child sexually abused by a stranger may at least understand that the offender was an outsider. Abuse by a parent or trusted caregiver can destroy the child’s understanding of safety itself. Research on child sexual abuse has associated such experiences with serious psychological and social consequences, while Nigeria’s own research literature acknowledges that the true burden of child sexual abuse remains difficult to determine because many cases never reach formal institutions.

The damage can follow the child into adulthood. Shame, anxiety, depression, difficulties with trust and intimacy, distorted ideas about relationships and persistent feelings of guilt can become part of the aftermath. None of these outcomes is inevitable, and early professional intervention can make a substantial difference. That is why the police assurance that the rescued children will receive counselling, care and protection is important. Their recovery must become as important as the prosecution of whoever is responsible.

There is also a digital dimension that Nigerian society can no longer ignore. Once sexual abuse of a child is recorded and distributed online, the trauma can acquire a frightening permanence. Removing the original video does not necessarily erase copies, screenshots or private downloads. A child may therefore face the possibility of encountering evidence of her own abuse years later.

This is why Nigerians must resist the temptation to circulate such material in the name of outrage or evidence. Sharing it further can compound the victim’s exploitation. The proper response is to report it to law enforcement and relevant child-protection authorities.

Legally, Nigeria has no ambiguity about the protection owed to children. Section 32 of the Child Rights Act 2003 criminalises sexual abuse and exploitation of a child and provides for imprisonment upon conviction. The Act also establishes the best interests of the child as a paramount consideration.

The Anambra case should therefore not end with an arrest, a viral controversy and a forgotten headline. It should force families, schools, religious institutions, communities and government agencies to examine how children can disclose abuse safely, how warning signs can be recognised and how survivors can receive long-term psychological support.

A child’s childhood cannot be returned once violated. But society can still decide whether the violation becomes a life sentence of trauma or the beginning of a carefully supported journey towards healing.

The first duty of culture is to protect the vulnerable. The first duty of parenthood is to protect the child. And when either fails, silence is no longer tradition. It is complicity.