By Lemmy Ughegbe, PhD
The primary purpose of government, by all known democratic definitions, is the security and welfare of its citizens.
That solemn duty is not a matter of choice or convenience — it is the very legitimacy upon which the social contract between a state and its people is built. In Nigeria today, that contract is not only broken — it is desecrated daily by a government that appears increasingly either incapable or unwilling to protect its citizens.
In a nation with spaces overrun by armed bandits, killer herders, terrorists, and politically connected militias, the most endangered species is not the criminal — it is the innocent citizen. The tragedy is not just the violence itself; it is the silence, complicity, and selective outrage of a state that seems to have legalised insecurity.
Let’s be clear: Nigeria is not suffering from a shortage of security agencies or legislation. With over a dozen paramilitary bodies, multiple layers of armed forces, and a bloated defence and security budget that rises with each appropriation cycle, one would expect the streets, farms, highways, and villages to be safe. But safety in Nigeria has become a luxury — one reserved for the elite, the armed, or the politically connected.
Instead, we live in a country where bandits can shoot down a military aircraft, negotiate ransoms openly, and grant interviews to journalists without fear of arrest. We live in a country where terrorists who have killed thousands are granted “repentant” status and reintegrated into society. In contrast, their victims are left to bury loved ones, mourn in silence, or flee as displaced persons. The message is clear: the Nigerian state handles killers with kid’s gloves but punishes the weak.
If you doubt this conclusion, ask the people of Benue and Plateau States, where attacks have become routine and entire communities have been wiped out in targeted killings. In Bokkos and Mangu, the death toll in late 2023 exceeded 200 villagers in just three days — yet no national mourning was declared, no presidential visit was paid, and no single high-profile arrest was made. These atrocities were neither hidden nor deniable; they were ignored.
In Benue, the communities of Gwer West, Guma, and Logo have been under relentless siege. Villagers sleep in the forests to avoid night raids. Fields lie fallow. Schools and churches have been razed. The government’s response? Hollow condemnations and empty security assurances that never materialise. What Benue and Plateau show us is that some lives in Nigeria do not matter — at least not to those who control the levers of power.
And while the state remains languid and seemingly non-committal to bringing mass murderers to justice, it has shown no hesitation in unleashing the full weight of its legal system on the most vulnerable.
Take the case of Sunday Jackson, a young farmer from Dong community in Adamawa State. In 2015, he was attacked by a Fulani herdsman, Buba Ardo Bawuro, after protesting that cattle had destroyed his crops. Bawuro allegedly struck first, stabbing Jackson with a knife. In a desperate struggle to save his life, Jackson overpowered his attacker and fatally stabbed him “in self-defence.”
He was arrested, tried, and sentenced to death by hanging by the Adamawa State High Court in February 2021. The Supreme Court of Nigeria upheld the verdict in March 2025, arguing that Sunday should have fled the scene after disarming his attacker — as if the right to self-defence has been outlawed for poor farmers.
This is not an isolated case of harsh justice. It is a chilling emblem of state hypocrisy — where killers are cajoled and victims are criminalised. A man fights for his life against an assailant and is condemned to die for survival. What message does this send to millions of poor, vulnerable citizens across Nigeria?
This is why we must call for clemency in the case of Sunday Jackson. His conviction may have passed through all the rungs of the judiciary — right up to the Supreme Court — but justice must not only be legal; it must also be humane.
The facts, as established by the courts, remain unshaken: Sunday was attacked while defending his farmland — a lifeline in rural Nigeria, where agriculture is not just a trade but a matter of survival itself. He was stabbed first, bled, fought for his life, and only survived because he disarmed and overpowered his assailant. To now condemn him to death for surviving a brutal assault in a country where state protection is a shimmering mirage for the poor is a devastating indictment of our justice system.
Even more compelling is the fact that the father of the deceased attacker, Buba Ardo Bawuro, has publicly lent his voice to the call for clemency for Sunday Jackson. This rare and courageous act of forgiveness is not just an appeal to compassion but a powerful validation of Sunday’s truth — and a recognition that vengeance does not restore justice, nor does it heal communities.
It is on this ground of both law and mercy that the Governor of Adamawa State, Mr. Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri, should be urged to exercise his constitutional prerogative of mercy under Section 212 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended).
Clemency exists in law not to erase wrongdoing but to temper punishment with humanity — especially in cases where justice by procedure alone would amount to injustice in principle.
Granting clemency to Sunday Jackson will not only save a man from the hangman’s noose, but it will also send a clear and healing message to a fractured society: that justice is not the preserve of the powerful and that the poor are not disposable.
It will affirm that the government does not criminalise survival and that governors are not indifferent bystanders to the consequences of systemic failure.
Let it be said, when history records this moment, that in a time of growing authoritarianism and judicial callousness, a state governor chose compassion over convenience, justice over rigidity, and mercy over death.
We must ask again: what is the purpose of government if it cannot protect life, property, and dignity? The Nigerian Constitution, in Section 14(2)(b), states unequivocally: “The security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government.”
Yet, in today’s Nigeria, the government has become a theatre of absurdity, where even this basic obligation is not only unmet but also mocked in practice.
Governors boast of building bridges while villagers die on the roads. Lawmakers appropriate billions for security while entire local government areas (LGAs) fall under the control of non-state actors. Military spokespeople declare “technical defeat” over Boko Haram while communities in the North-East still pay taxes to insurgents to access their farmlands.
Worse still, the state has become an accomplice — through silence, through selective justice, and through policies that embolden perpetrators. When the law is not applied evenly, it ceases to be justice. When the state fails to protect the vulnerable and shield them from violence, it loses its legitimacy.
In Plateau, survivors recount how security forces stationed nearby were not deployed during attacks and how communal warnings about suspicious gatherings were ignored. In Benue, the police rarely arrive until after the carnage has occurred.
In Zamfara, negotiated amnesty for bandits has become a cruel joke. In Kaduna, train passengers were held hostage for months while the government’s energy was focused on managing the narrative, not solving the crisis.
This is how Nigeria has normalised death. We count corpses weekly. We scroll past bloodied photos. We’ve become so inured to violence that even the most horrific massacres barely register as national trauma. This is what happens when a state legalises insecurity: it breeds a society that forgets how to be outraged.
In Lagos or Abuja, one car theft sparks a police operation. But in Bokkos or Logo, whole families are buried with no reported arrests. We are not all equal under the Nigerian state. Some deaths are worthy of headlines and commissions of inquiry; others are not even worthy of a condolence tweet from the presidency.
And when the law is applied, it is used with a troubling asymmetry. The Sunday Jackson case shows us a judiciary that punishes survival. Yet those who coordinated the #EndSARS attacks, the masterminds of Kaduna train abductions, and the financiers of bandit camps are to be served what they deserve. What, then, is justice?
If Nigeria must reclaim its soul, it must begin with truth and accountability. The government must declare a national security emergency — not in rhetoric, but in action. That means holding security chiefs accountable for failure.
It means dismantling the systems that allow banditry to thrive. It means protecting witnesses and whistle-blowers. It means investing in community policing and intelligence, not just in bulletproof SUVs. And most importantly, it means ending the culture of two-tier justice that condemns the poor and absolves the connected.
We must also examine how we arrived here — how a once-hopeful democracy has become a theatre of bloodshed, impunity, and cynical governance. We must rediscover our collective outrage and resist the temptation to accept this dystopia as usual. Silence, at this point, is complicity. Indifference is betrayal.
Let it also be said: injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. Sunday, Jackson’s case must be reviewed with urgency, and his death sentence must be commuted.
The Nigerian Bar Association, the National Human Rights Commission, and civil society must not remain silent. If self-defence is now a capital crime, then we are all potential victims of the state.
Every nation faces insecurity. But not every nation abandons its people to it. Nigeria, at its best, has always been a country of resilience, compassion, and the rule of law. But Nigeria, at its worst, is what we are seeing today — a place where survival is criminal, silence is policy, and death is just another news cycle.
We must reject this descent. We must insist that governance means protection. And we must declare, boldly and without apology, that a state that cannot protect its people has no right to their allegiance.
