5,091 Lost. Did You Notice?

“The purpose of government is to enable the people of a nation to live in safety and happiness. Government exists for the interests of the governed, not for the governors.”
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
(Diplomat, Lawyer, Philosopher & Third President of the United States of America)

Dear Active Citizen,

We’ve noticed something troubling lately - how easily bad news about insecurity passes through our timelines without much reaction anymore. This quarter’s numbers are a good example of why that should worry us.

5,091. That’s how many people we lost to violence in Nigeria between April and June this year - bandits, Boko Haram, kidnappers, armed gangs, abductions, clashes, all of it. Up from 4,326 the quarter before. More than half of those killed, 2,644 - were just civilians. People going about their lives. Another 304 were security personnel who died trying to stop it.

A few years ago, a death toll like this would have been the story for weeks. Now it comes out, we scroll past it, and we move on to the next quarter. That’s not okay, and it’s worth sitting with, especially with 2027 coming up.

It’s not “up North’s problem” anymore

We used to talk about insecurity like it belonged to certain states. That’s just not true anymore. Every single geopolitical zone recorded deaths this quarter, and it’s getting worse almost everywhere. The North West jumped 45% from last quarter. Zamfara alone went from 338 deaths to 800, more than double. The North East is still the deadliest zone overall, with Borno carrying the heaviest weight at 1,355 deaths. But look at the South too: South South doubled, South West is up 54%, South East up 26%. Nobody’s numbers are staying flat. Nobody’s safe zone is actually safe.

Somebody’s job is to keep us safe. That job isn’t being done.

At the most basic level, government exists to protect lives and property. That’s the deal. And right now, that deal is being broken, badly. We lost 304 security personnel this quarter trying to hold the line, and still lost over 2,600 civilians. If this is the trend, we have to be honest that something fundamental isn’t working.

Every family displaced by an attack is a family that quietly falls off the voter roll. They’re far from their polling unit. Their documents are gone. They’re trying to survive, not fill out registration forms. It’s disenfranchisement, just without anyone officially saying no.

And as insecurity spreads to more places, more families get pushed into that same silence. When 2027 turnout comes in lower than we’d like, there’s a real risk we call it “voter apathy.” But that might be the wrong story. The real story might be displacement, fear, and a security crisis nobody fixed in time.

That’s why we’re saying it now, before the numbers come in and get misread. Our job going forward isn’t just reaching the people who are easy to reach. It’s asking loudly, who’s being pushed out of reach entirely. And making sure that question doesn’t get lost the way this quarter’s numbers already are.

In service of the #OfficeOfTheCitizen
The EiE Nigeria Team.

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Enough thinking. Enough ranting. Let’s build.