When the people lie against the government, by Owei Lakemfa

The day Nigeria turned sixty-six as an independent country, it marked it with fine speeches and assurances by its leaders. Both those in government and those outside competed.

On that Thursday, October 1, 2026, twenty youth corpers set out in two buses from the comfort and safety of their homes to serve their country. But they did not get to their destinations as they were abducted by bandits on the Owerri-Onitsha Road in Imo State.

These are undisputed facts. Every other fact after this, until their return, has, in the growing culture of Nigeria, become disputed.

So, the twin matters I raise next must be caveat emptor. Ten of the patriotic youths were rescued by security agencies immediately after the attacks. This is a version. The other is that the youths escaped. They ran in different directions before the bandits could get their acts together. So, were these youths rescued by the police, or did they escape on their own?

After one week, the rest of the captives became free. The police had claimed that it had located these youths but could not move against their abductors as their location could be mined. But according to the Imo State Commissioner of Police, Audu Bosso, the security agents surrounded the location and pressured the bandits to give up the captives.

The Police Force Public Relations Officer, CSP Anietie Iniedu, was more specific. The captives were rescued by a joint search-and-rescue team of our gallant security agencies.

At this point, when the Federal and Imo State Governments were celebrating and the security network was being congratulated, the parents and guardians of the victims emerged to tell a different story. The bandits had appointed a negotiator with whom they had been meeting. They succeeded in reducing the N50 million ransom demand for each captive to N15 million, then N5 million.

The families then raised the ransom. In documented interviews with identified parents and guardians of the victims, such as Madam Alirat Wahab and Joy Zainab, each family paid between N3 million and N6 million.

After the money was collected, the bandits ordered them to convert it into dollars before payment. Subsequently, the captives were released.

So, who do we believe: the diligent government and security agencies, or the families of the victims?

In April 2026, the military had announced that it had rescued 31 captives following an Easter attack in the North. But the affected communities disputed the facts and declared that the military did not rescue even one victim.

Perhaps the most vicious tackling of government was in the Ogbomoso, Oyo State case, where, on May 15, 2026, 39 pupils and seven teachers were abducted and held for 56 days. One of the victims, Mr. Michael Oyedokun, was beheaded in captivity.

The glorious rescue story was told of how the security agencies, led by the military, employed intelligence, including the arrest of the bandits’ family members, and forced the bandits to abandon their quest for ransom.

President Bola Tinubu said no ransom was paid before the bandits willingly gave up their highly prized victims. However, this was disputed by some and by a sceptical public which, without any iota of proof, chose to believe the latter.

There is so much trust deficit between the government and the people that, in such disputes, very few speak up for the government.

The established pattern is that, when the people lie against the government or the government lies against the people, the people are believed. In public opinion, the Nigerian Government and, by extension, the political class have become orphans.

So, when the Tinubu administration claims that security has vastly improved, the populace point to the fact that it is still a dangerous adventure to travel many roads in the country. They also point out that, in parts of the country, it can be suicidal for citizens to tend their farms.

When government reels out statistics that show it has succeeded in beating back bandits and terrorists, people point at the internally displaced persons’ camps which dot the northern parts.

The disputes over facts between the government and the populace are not limited to security. For instance, while the government points at statistics of improved food production and reduced inflation, the populace complain about rumbling stomachs.

Let us take this case. What is not in doubt is that the exchange rate has stabilized at less than N1,400 to the dollar. This is a far cry from when it climbed to almost N1,900. But people point out that, rather than stabilizing the Naira, the Tinubu administration actually devalued it from the less-than-N750-to-the-dollar rate it met in May 2023.

A current contention is the criminally high cost of fuel. The government claims that the fuel subsidy is gone and has subsequently seen the price rise by over 500 percent. This, it said, is healthy for the economy, which it claims might have collapsed under the weight of the subsidy. The people dispute this. They argue that what the Tinubu administration did was merely to force the populace to pay high fuel prices and divert the accruing funds to government coffers, where they cannot be accounted for as they are channeled to the looting belt. Their proof is that living conditions have become far worse since the subsidy removal.

So, for them, the current Tinubu offer to reduce the price of fuel for thirty days not only reinforces the widely held belief that subsidy removal is anti-people, but also suggests that the offer is a gimmick to win the January 2027 general elections.

The Bola Tinubu government has also come up with the ingenious idea of selling public high school lands to fund the infrastructure deficit in the schools. But most people claim that this is mere daylight robbery; a scheme to steal the schools’ prime lands. So, it is a land grab.

In this emerging struggle between the people and government, unfair tactics are being employed to make the latter look bad.

Thus, extraordinary measures are urgently needed. In this direction, the Government has taken the correct step of enacting the Cyberbullying Act, under which people who lie against government, thus diverting its attention from its sacred service to the country, can be sent to jail. It is time the government was protected against the lies of the people. I so move.