By Olarinre Salako, PhD
The escalating violence against civilians, including teachers, in Yorubaland exposes a devastating security failure that demands urgent, decisive federal action before more innocent lives are lost.
For decades, Nigerians in the Southwest watched the horror of insecurity unfold in other regions with grief and helplessness. Today, that horror has arrived at their own doorstep, and the silence from leadership is deafening.
The reported targeting and killing of Yoruba teachers is not merely a security statistic — it is a civilizational assault. Teachers are the architects of the future. When they are murdered in their communities, it is not just lives that are lost; it is hope, learning, and generational progress that bleeds out with them.
Yorubaland has historically been one of Nigeria’s most educationally progressive regions. Its reverence for schooling is cultural and deeply held. Attacking teachers in this land is therefore a symbolic and strategic blow — one designed to sow terror where pride once stood.
The federal government must act — not with press statements, but with verifiable, coordinated security deployment. Communities must be protected. Intelligence networks must be strengthened. Perpetrators must face justice.
No ethnicity, no region, no political affiliation shields a community from violence when the state abdicates its core responsibility. Nigerians — Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo, and every nationality in between — deserve a government that treats their safety as non-negotiable.
The killings in Yorubaland must stop. Not tomorrow. Now. Every day of inaction is a policy choice — and Nigerians are watching who makes it.
Olarinre Salako writes from Texas
NEWS NOW:
