The lies from Kaduna pulling Nigeria down, by Emmanuel Aziken

There are moments in a nation’s life when tragedy does more than wound bodies and break families. There are moments when tragedy strips a country naked, exposing the rot in its institutions, the poverty of its leadership culture, and the moral hollowness that has quietly become normal. The mass abduction of worshippers in Kurmin Wali, Kajuru Local Government Area of Kaduna State, is one such moment.

 On Sunday, January 18, 2026, gunmen stormed three churches during service, herding worshippers at gunpoint into the surrounding forests. Local accounts spoke of horror — mothers dragged away, children crying, the elderly collapsing from exhaustion as they were marched into bandit hideouts. Community leaders put the figure at about 177 abducted, with only a handful escaping.

 Yet, almost as disturbing as the crime itself was the official reaction that followed.

 Kaduna State officials did not first speak with empathy. They did not first speak with urgency. They did not first speak with the humility of leaders confronted with evil.

 They first spoke with denial.

 The chairman of Kajuru Local Government, Dauda Madaki, alongside police authorities, dismissed the reports as “falsehood” and “rumours.” They challenged Nigerians to produce lists of names, as though terror must first satisfy bureaucracy before it qualifies as tragedy. They went further, suggesting that “conflict entrepreneurs” were behind the reports — effectively accusing traumatised communities and journalists of manufacturing grief.

Indeed, your correspondent as editor of GWG.ng dropped the story of the kidnapping submitted by a correspondent because he watched the Kaduna officials spew their lies before the truth emerged.

Indeed the lies of the Kaduna officials confused rescue efforts. It mocked victims who were already deep in the forests with guns pointed at their backs.

 Only after mounting pressure did the Nigeria Police Force reverse itself and confirm that a mass abduction had indeed taken place.

 By then, the damage was already done.

 This is why Kurmin Wali must not be remembered only as another mass kidnapping. It must be remembered as a case study in how government officials — through bigotry, institutional arrogance, and a frightening lack of empathy — continue to sabotage Nigeria’s development.

 Your correspondent posits that development the kind we are seeing under Governor Uba Sani is not only about roads, budgets, and GDP charts. Development begins with truth. It survives on trust. It grows where leadership is accountable.

And nothing kills development faster than a government that lies to its own people.

The lies from Kaduna did not merely misinform. They dehumanised. They told victims that their pain was inconvenient. They told families that their tears were exaggerations. They told criminals that the first instinct of the state is not pursuit — but public relations.

 Worse still, the denial carried an undertone Nigerians know too well: that some lives require proof before they are believed.

 In a country already fractured by ethnic suspicion and religious tension, the refusal to acknowledge that worshippers had been seized from churches was not neutral. It fed dangerous narratives. It signalled selective empathy. It deepened mistrust and even more gave fibre to President Donald Trump’s commentary of Christian genocide in Nigeria.

 And this is where Kaduna becomes more than Kaduna. Because the lie did not begin or end in Kajuru.

It lives in federal ministries where figures are massaged to protect reputations rather than citizens. It thrives in security briefings where “technicalities” replace accountability.

It echoes in hospitals where negligence is hidden, in collapsed buildings where approvals vanish, in elections where obvious failures are repackaged as success.

 The lies from Kaduna are replicated in Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt, Benin, and Maiduguri.

They are embedded in a system where officials are trained to defend offices, not people.

In other climes, public officials resign when their first response to tragedy is falsehood. In functioning democracies, a police chief who denies a mass abduction that later proves true is not defended — he is dismissed. A local government chairman who accuses victims of misinformation does not keep his seat — he steps aside. A security architecture that misleads the public is restructured.

However, in Nigeria, such officials hold press conferences.

This absence of consequences is why lies have become institutional culture.

When officials know that nothing happens after dishonesty, dishonesty becomes policy.

And when dishonesty becomes policy, development becomes impossible.

Nigeria is being pulled back economically because investors do not trust lying systems.

Humanitarian partners do not rely on dishonest data. Citizens do not cooperate with institutions that insult their intelligence.

Even security itself collapses where truth is negotiable. You cannot defeat bandits while denying their victims exist. You cannot coordinate rescue while pretending no one is missing. You cannot build early-warning systems where local cries are dismissed as “rumours.”

Kurmin Wali also exposed another sickness: emotional distance.

Not once in the early official reactions was there visible compassion rather after their lies the officials went to the comfort of their local drinks and joys.

That lack of empathy is not accidental. It is learned. It is the product of a political culture where power isolates, where officials interact more with files than with flesh, where communities are statistics, not stories.

Countries develop when leaders feel the pain of the governed. They decline when leaders fear embarrassment more than bloodshed.

Eventually, even Governor Uba Sani’s government shifted tone, promising rescue operations and security collaboration.

 The lies from Kaduna are not pulling Nigeria down because they are rare. They are pulling Nigeria down because they are normal.

They reveal a governance culture that sees truth as optional, empathy as weakness, and office as insulation from responsibility.

Until Nigeria builds a system where officials who lie about tragedy lose legitimacy, lose office, and lose careers, the nation will keep sinking under the weight of its own dishonesty.

Kurmin Wali is not just a crime scene. It is a mirror of Nigeria.

And what Nigeria saw in that mirror should disturb every citizen who still hopes for a country that works.

Because a nation that cannot tell the truth to its own people cannot build anything that lasts.

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