Nigeria’s Descent Into Managed Chaos

George Orwell warned us. In 1984, he painted the portrait of a state that manufactures consent through propaganda, suppresses dissent through fear, and perfects the art of keeping a people docile through ignorance. He wrote: “The masses never revolt of their own accord, and they never revolt merely because they are oppressed. Indeed, so long as they are not permitted to have truth, they never even become aware that they are oppressed.”

Read that again. Then look at Nigeria. A Nation Bleeding in Broad Daylight

The figures are not fiction; they are not opposition propaganda; they are documented, verifiable, and damning.

In May 2025 alone, Nigeria recorded at least 365 violent incidents, the highest of any country in Africa that month. The National Human Rights Commission confirmed that at least 2,266 Nigerians were killed by bandits and insurgents in just the first half of 2025, already surpassing the entire death toll for all of 2024. The 2024 Global Terrorism Index placed Nigeria among the top 10 most terrorised nations on earth.

Boko Haram and ISWAP, which a Nigerian president publicly declared “technically defeated” in 2015, remain very much alive. In September 2024, a single Boko Haram attack in Yobe State killed 170 people. These two groups alone were responsible for 66 percent of all violent deaths in Nigeria in 2024. Meanwhile, a classified security memo revealed that jihadist militants had infiltrated the Federal Capital, Abuja, in preparation for attacks on critical infrastructure. The seat of power itself is no longer safe, yet the government’s public posture remains one of assurance, ceremony, and denial.

Over 1.3 million Nigerians were internally displaced in the North-Central and North-West regions by April 2024 alone. Mass kidnappings have become, in the words of the International Crisis Group, “arguably the most lucrative criminal enterprise in the northwest zone.” Amnesty International has warned that an entire generation of Nigerian children risks losing their education as schools are shuttered across Bauchi, Plateau, Zamfara, Niger, Kwara, and Kaduna states due to insecurity the government cannot contain.

May 29, 2023, his very first day in office, President Bola Tinubu declared three words that would reshape the lives of over 200 million Nigerians: “Subsidy is gone.”

There was no transition plan, no adequate compensatory framework for the poor, no phased implementation. Just a single sentence at an inauguration ceremony and the immediate aftermath was catastrophic. Fuel prices surged from ₦185 per litre in 2023 to over ₦1,025 per litre by 2024. The naira collapsed from 460 to the dollar to over 1,700 to the dollar. Inflation reached 34.19 percent by mid-2024, with food inflation exceeding 40 percent, Nigeria’s worst cost-of-living crisis in nearly three decades. Public transportation costs rose by nearly 300 percent, crushing the urban and rural poor beneath a weight of unrelenting hardship.

The government promised that the trillions saved from subsidy removal would be redirected to infrastructure, education, and healthcare. Two years on, the World Economic Forum ranked Nigeria 130th out of 141 countries in infrastructure quality. There has been no transparency about how much was saved or where it went. What Nigerians did see was the purchase of a new presidential jet and plans for a government luxury yacht, while citizens rationed meals and market women counted pennies for kerosene.

Orwell wrote: “We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, twisting the facts so as to show that we were right.” The Nigerian government has elevated this into an art form; corruption has become the star of the show, the Oxygen of the Crisis.

Nigeria does not lack intelligence, resources, or human capital. What it lacks, what has been systematically stolen from it, is the culture of consequence. A culture in which a government that fails to protect its people is removed. In which a finance minister who cannot account for trillions faces a courtroom, not a cabinet reshuffle. In which citizens hold the state to the standard the state promised when it asked for their votes.

Civil society organisations have gone further than most. CISLAC/Transparency International Nigeria stated plainly that “insecurity has become an organised business for some individuals in government”, that officials broker ransom deals, facilitate negotiations with terrorists, and maintain cycles of violence that guarantee continuous funding. Nigeria’s defence procurement has never been independently audited. Security expenditure runs into trillions of naira with no public accountability for outcomes on the ground.

Seven out of ten Nigerians, according to a 2024 NOI Polls survey, describe their security situation as bad or very bad. Yet the political class continues to hold elaborate ceremonies, swap party affiliations, and trade accusations, all while the nation burns.

Obinwannem Media Network is committed to truth-telling, cultural dignity, and the liberation of the Igbo voice and the Nigerian conscience.

Written by Mbanefo Chijioke (Obinwannem News correspondent, Enugu)
Date: June 04, 2026
Ubochi: Nkwo Ikuku
Published by Ugwu Alexander Okechukwu (MD, Obinwannem Global Media)