By Abioye Tosin Lawrence
They were born on Nigerian soil.
They speak our languages, bear our names, even carry our green passports.
But their hands are stained with the blood of fellow Nigerians, and their hearts are divorced from any loyalty to the land they claim.
Those who burn villages in the night, those who hijack roads with bullets instead of ideas, those who turn religion into a sword, are they truly ours?
Yes, by birth.
But not by loyalty.
Not by conscience.
Not by nationhood.
The truth is uncomfortable: many of these killers are the children of neglect.
They are the products of a system that educated them poorly, fed them sparingly, employed them rarely, and left them to be mentored by violence.
When Nigeria abandoned its duty to shape minds and instill hope, chaos took its place. And now we see young men, and sometimes even boys, wielding guns, not dreams.
Loyalty is not blind obedience. It’s not silence in the face of injustice. Loyalty is the will to protect what is shared. It is a commitment to community over carnage.
And we have far too many people in positions of power, and in the streets, who have chosen self over society.
Some do it in suits, others in rags. But betrayal is betrayal.
What Nigeria faces is not just insecurity, it is a moral civil war.
The divide is no longer north or south, Christian or Muslim, Yoruba or Fulani.
The divide is between those who build and those who destroy.
Between those who see life as sacred and those who see blood as currency
What Must We Do?
We must rebuild the Nigerian identity, not around tribes or borders, but around shared values:
The value of human life.
The principle of justice.
The dignity of labor.
The right to dream without fear.
And we must call out the hypocrisy: those who shout “One Nigeria” by day, but sponsor violence by night.
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Final Word
Yes, they are Nigerians. But only in name.
True citizenship is not stamped on paper, it is engraved in action.
And until loyalty returns to our land, we will remain a nation populated by strangers.