Author: Boma West

THE sound of a school bell should call children to learning, not to fear. Right now, in too many communities, that bell rings over empty classrooms. Kids are staying home. The reason is simple and terrifying: bandits and kidnappers now see schools as hunting grounds. This is not a small problem. This is a crisis that steals childhood itself. Schools have become soft targets. Many village classrooms have no fence, no guard, no working phone to call for help. A few armed men on motorcycles can roll in, grab dozens of children, and vanish before anyone raises an alarm. The…

THE All Progressives Congress completed its 2026 primaries across Nigeria last week, and what was supposed to be an exercise in internal democracy has turned into something far more troubling. Across dozens of states, party members who spent months preparing, consulting, and mobilising are now staring at results they say do not reflect anything that happened on election day. The mood inside the ruling party is anything but celebratory. The week-long primary election exercise, which the party had hoped would strengthen unity ahead of the 2027 elections, instead exposed deep divisions, with allegations of ghost elections, inflated vote figures, candidate…

A TEACHER was beheaded somewhere in Nigeria. His head was cut off. He had a family, students who needed him, and a life that mattered. That gruesome act happened, and the country moved on. No serious outrage. No streets filled with angry citizens. No government official who could not sleep that night. Life simply continued, as it always does now, as if a man’s murder is just another weather report. This is where Nigeria stands today. Something deep and terrible has happened to this country. It is not just poverty. It is not just corruption. It is not just insecurity.…

NYESOM Wike has spent the better part of a decade rewriting what political dominance looks like in Rivers State. He has governed with the grip of a man who believes the state was created specifically for him, and a disturbing number of people around him have encouraged that belief. As the Federal Capital Territory Minister, he continues to reach long arms back into Port Harcourt, steering affairs from Abuja as though geography is merely an inconvenience to his ambitions. The question worth asking now is not whether Wike is powerful. He clearly is. The real question is whether the kind…

A CLIP circulating across Nigerian social media captured something many citizens have long suspected but rarely heard spoken aloud by those in authority. In it, a NEPA official in Bayelsa State offers a candid, if startling, explanation for why residents in his area receive barely an hour of electricity at a stretch. His words, stripped of diplomatic framing, placed the blame squarely on the shoulders of consumers. The moment light is restored, he explained, people rush to power their freezers, washing machines, pumping machines, and every other appliance in the house, burning through a week’s worth of energy allocation within…

EVERY few weeks, a family somewhere in Nigeria receives the kind of news that no amount of prayer or preparation ever makes easier to hear. Their child, their sibling, their cousin who had travelled abroad full of ambition and promise, has died. The death that wasn’t from a car accident or a violent crime, but from exhaustion, from a body that was pushed beyond the limits of what human flesh can bear, from long hours on their feet in care homes, warehouses, hospitals and restaurants, with barely a moment to eat, sleep or remember that they too are human beings…

THERE’s something deeply wrong with a society that has learned to hear gunshots and believe its a party. In too many places, weddings and festivals that should be loud with music and laughter are loud with something else entirely. Live rounds fired into the air by people who think they’re just having a good time. We call it tradition. We call it excitement. What it actually is, is people gambling with lives that aren’t theirs to gamble with. A bullet fired into the sky doesn’t disappear. It slows down, turns around, and comes back still carrying enough force to kill.…

NIGERIANS are tired of Nigeria. This is not a radical statement anymore. It is what people say out loud now, on buses, in markets, at work places, on social media, with no shame and no apology. The exhaustion is real, and it has been building for a long time. What used to be a private feeling shared between close friends has become a national conversation, and the fact that nobody is embarrassed about it anymore tells you just how far things have gone. Life in Nigeria today is something most people endure rather than enjoy. Food prices go up so…

THERE is something powerful about a place where people from different backgrounds wake up each day and choose to live, trade, laugh, and build together. Nigeria is one of such places. From the east to the north, west and south, our diversity is not just something we talk about, it is something we live every day. We speak different languages, eat different foods, worship in different ways, and yet we share the same streets, the same dreams, and the same future. But as beautiful as this diversity is, it has also been a source of tension when not properly managed.…

THERE is a quiet crisis unfolding across Nigeria, one that does not always make the front pages but lives in the daily reality of millions of young people. It is the story of graduates who have done everything they were told to do, stayed in school, passed their exams, earned their degrees, and yet find themselves at home months or even years later, still searching for work. In many households, the framed certificate on the wall has become a painful reminder of expectations unmet. Parents who sacrificed everything to educate their children now watch helplessly as those same children struggle…

HUMAN trafficking remains one of the darkest crimes quietly affecting thousands of families across Nigeria. Despite years of warnings and government efforts, many young people are still being lured away from their homes with promises of work, education, or a better life abroad. Behind those promises are organized traffickers who take advantage of poverty, lack of opportunity, and the dreams of desperate families. What often begins as hope quickly turns into exploitation, abuse, and years of suffering for the victims. Across many communities in Nigeria, traffickers target the most vulnerable people. Young girls are the most common victims, though boys…

EVERY year on International Women’s Day, conversations about women usually revolve around empowerment, opportunity, and progress. Yet in recent years, another conversation has quietly found its way into everyday discussions among young women in Nigeria. It is the growing fascination with the Brazilian Butt Lift, popularly known as BBL. Scroll through social media, walk into certain social gatherings, or even pay attention to celebrity culture and the pattern becomes hard to ignore. The BBL body has become the new beauty standard for many young women. A tiny waist, fuller hips, and a pronounced backside have become the shape many aspire…

THE news from Keffi Road last week was heartbreaking. Five people lost their lives in a crash that has once again forced Nigerians to confront a painful reality: our roads are no longer just dangerous because of reckless drivers or bad infrastructure. Increasingly, questions are being asked about the role of the very agency created to protect us. The Federal Road Safety Corps was established to promote safety, enforce traffic laws, and reduce road crashes across the country. Its officers are expected to act with discipline, professionalism, and restraint. But over time, troubling patterns have emerged that suggest that, in…

EVERYWHERE you turn in Nigeria today, there is a troubling story. A young man in his thirties on dialysis, a young woman battling aggressive cancer. Families are selling their properties to fund treatment. Kidney disease and cancer are no longer illnesses we hear about occasionally, they have become frighteningly common. Many of us are beginning to ask the same uneasy question: what exactly is happening to us? It is impossible to ignore the environment we are living in. Our markets are flooded with counterfeit and substandard products, fake drugs, adulterated drinks, contaminated food items, and unregulated herbal mixtures boldly advertised…

NIGERIA’s democracy stands, once again, at a crossroads. As debates over electoral reforms resurface in the wake of recent elections, the issue of real-time transmission of election results has returned to the front burner. At the heart of the conversation is the Electoral Amendment Act and the pending question of whether the National Assembly will decisively and unequivocally stamp into law the mandatory real-time electronic transmission of results. This is not merely a legislative technicality. It is a defining moment that will shape the credibility of our elections, the trust of the electorate, and the future of participatory governance in…

THERE is a season when phones do not rest. They ring early in the morning before quiet reflection begins. They ring during meetings. They ring late at night when the body is tired but the ego is still awake. Messages pile up faster than they can be read. Visitors fill waiting rooms, living rooms, offices, and corridors. Old friends reappear. Distant relatives suddenly remember shared bloodlines. Even former adversaries discover reasons to smile. This season is called power. In our society, power is loud. It attracts attention the way ripe fruit attracts insects. When a person becomes a president, a…

NIGERIA is still absorbing the shock surrounding the reported death of a young and popular singer following a snake bite in Abuja. Beyond the grief and online reactions, the incident has forced an uncomfortable national conversation. It happened in the country’s capital, a city meant to reflect Nigeria’s highest standards of infrastructure and emergency preparedness. Yet, when a life-threatening emergency struck, serious questions emerged about readiness, response, and access to urgent medical care. This was not a remote village or an underserved rural settlement. It occurred in Abuja, home to the seat of power, international institutions, and some of the…

AS the noise around the 2027 elections begins to rise, Nigeria once again finds itself at a familiar crossroads. Posters will soon fill our streets, party slogans will dominate radio jingles, and loyalists will defend colours and symbols as if they were family heirlooms. Yet beneath all that noise is a quieter and more serious question that many Nigerians are already asking. Should we continue to vote for parties simply because they are parties, or should we finally decide based on the integrity and capacity of the individuals asking to lead us. For decades, party loyalty has shaped our politics.…

NIGERIA’s education sector is quietly approaching a crisis that may soon become impossible to ignore. Across the country, a growing number of teachers are resigning from their jobs, not because they lack passion for teaching, but because the wages they earn can no longer sustain a decent standard of living. If this trend continues unchecked, Nigeria may soon face a serious scarcity of teachers, with far reaching consequences for the quality of education and the future of millions of children. Teaching has traditionally been regarded as a noble profession, one that shapes minds and builds the foundation of society. However,…

NIGERIA’s hospitals are increasingly becoming places where hope goes to die, not because illness is always untreatable, but because negligence, weak protocols and institutional irresponsibility are allowed to flourish. The death of the 21-month-old son of acclaimed writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has once again laid bare a crisis Nigerians have lived with for decades. Our healthcare system is failing, and it is failing with deadly consequences. According to Chimamanda’s detailed statement, her son was alive, stable, and receiving care when he was transferred between hospitals in Lagos on January 6th. He had developed a serious infection but was well enough…