News

OPINION: Murder And Vengeance In Okuama

Published

2 years ago

March 25, 2024

By Lasisi Olagunju

I have a very senior police officer friend whose nickname is Ambush. On the front of my friend’s left shoulder is an ugly scar. At the back of the shoulder is an even bigger scar. I remembered Ambush the day it became known that 17 soldiers were murdered in a community in Delta State. My friend got his scars two decades plus two years ago somewhere in the Niger Delta during a routine police assignment. His team walked into an ambush mounted by militants and a firework ensued. A bullet meant for my friend’s heart missed it by an inch. The bullet whistled into my friend’s shoulder, ripped through flesh and bone and escaped. He was carried off the war field by his colleagues with very little hope of making it. But he did. If he was a Yoruba, he would kneel down and affirm that it was his orí that declined taking that destiny of premature death – his inner head refused to accept fatal ambush.

That near-death experience gave my friend his nickname, Ambush. And he loves being so called.

I spoke with the officer last week. His first daughter was about three years old and his wife heavy with the second child when he suffered that shot. The daughter has left the university now, top of her class. We agreed that if he had died in that incident, his daughter’s destiny may have been fatally altered. She would not have had any serious memory of the father beyond his being a victim of Nigeria and the career he chose. We agreed that only the grace of God would have saved the child, the unborn and their mum from life’s effective abandonment.

We discussed the Federal Government’s promise to give the 17 dead soldiers a befitting burial complete with national honours. We thought that was highly thoughtful and commendable. But I pointed out to my friend that national honours do not pay school fees. We agreed on that truth and on the truth that tributes do not buy love and do not give the warmth which only a father and a husband can give. We agreed that life can be really ice-cold for widows and children without fathers or mothers or both.

We discussed other incidents that ended more tragically for persons we knew: The Ombatse mass murder of May 7, 2013 at Alakyo, Nasarawa State, saw a militia kill 74 security operatives. We knew one promising young man among the fallen. Many of those wasted souls were married with children. The ones that were not married had loved ones. What has happened to those they left behind? Some anti-kidnapping operatives were ambushed, overpowered and murdered by vandals in Ikorodu, Lagos State in September 2015. One of them was personally known to us. He was part of our team when we were in government. He left a family and a fiancée. Whatever anyone may have done or may be doing to mitigate the loss cannot compensate for the broken pot and the spilt water.

So, what eventually happened to those who shot my friend? He didn’t tell me. They don’t tell.

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You can’t convince soldiers not to avenge their colleagues’ death. Epe is one of the principal towns in today’s Lagos State. It is a community pockmarked by a fissured history of fights and recriminations. It is a two-in-one town made up of Ijebu Epe and Eko Epe. Thirteen years before Lagos became a colony, there was a case of killing and revenge killing of lead warriors in Epe. Celebrated Epe historian, Theophilus Avoseh (1960) recorded in his ‘A Short History of Epe’ that in about 1848, Epe and one of its neighbours, Makun Omi, had a trade dispute. One of Ijebu Epe’s war chiefs was Balogun Agoro. His counterpart in Makun Omi was a strong man called Nabintan. Nabintan warned Agoro not to come to his side to trade or there would be trouble. But Agoro was like William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar who thinks himself “elder and more terrible” than danger. You remember Caesar’s famous rebuff of warnings about the Ides of March: “Danger knows full well that Caesar is more dangerous than he.” For Agoro, it was ibi tí wón bá ní kí gbégbé má gbé, ibè níí gbé. Ibi tí won ba ni ki tètè má tè, ibè níí tè… Like importunate Caesar, Agoro put his feet where he was warned not to. He went to the other side to trade in palm kernels and there was a fight and Agoro was murdered.

The historian wrote that a violent cry for vengeance rent the air in Epe: “The news of his assassination was soon broken to the Ijebu Epe, who trooping out to retaliate, drove and forbade the Makuns from fishing in their creeks. Makun people became apprehensive and as they were reduced to starvation by the measures taken by the Epes, they quickly appealed to Awujale Anikilaya to use his regal office to pacify the Epes. To engender mutual reconciliation and understanding, a date was fixed by the Awujale for the Epe and Makun people to meet at Epe Oju Alaro, Lagbade. During the settlement, however, Balogun Omini (of Epe) suddenly and without warning shot Nabintan dead with a gun. This resulted in a civil war. Omini praised himself for having revenged the assassination of Agoro and named himself ‘Omìní pa ohùn oba dà’ which interpreted means ‘Omini altered Awujale’s order for reconciliation.’ That was how it became a proverb in the town that ‘Ohun tí ó se Àgòrò tí kò bò ní Makun, òun náà ló se Nabintan tí kò bò ní Epe’ which means ‘the thing that prevented Agoro from coming back home from Makun has also prevented Nabintan from returning from Epe.’ The historian noted that the Awujale, who was initially angry at the killing was later pacified. Oba Anikilaya ‘winked at the offence’ and the fugitive offenders ‘returned to their respective homes.’”

Do not kill the Igúnnugún (vulture) of warriors so that you can live to see the year end. Kill the hornbill (àkàlàmàgbò) of the army and die this month. There is always a price to pay for every enemy action directed at soldiers.

Because we are far removed from the experience, some people are making excuses for the mass murder of soldiers in Okuama, Delta State. It takes very horrendous amounts of destruction for a storm abroad to make news at home. Distance is a factor when we interrogate tragedies. The farther they are, the less empathy we feel for the victims. Should it be like that? In my very long years as a reporter covering governors and governments, and in my short years in public office, I encountered and befriended persons across all professions. And, these included civil servants, doctors, nurses, soldiers, policemen, SSS operatives. Some of them have grown old and have retired. Some are dead. Many have grown tall and big and are still in service. They all dote on me and I monitor their career welfare and their personal wellbeing the way mother-hen casts furtive glances at its eggs. Every news of attack on service men or death in active service gives my heart a skip. Photographs and names of the murdered soldiers were released last week. I scanned the faces and skimmed through the names, holding my breath. None of them was known to me but all of them shared the human space with us. They did not deserve that death.

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How should we mourn them? Or how are we mourning them? A gush of regional and ethnic emotions flood our common course. Our partisan reactions question the humanness of our existence. The soldiers who fell were some parents’ sons; some ladies’ husbands; some children’s fathers. Their children no longer have a father to hug them; the kids do not again have a father for them to hug. The dead were brothers to some persons. The courses of those streams of life are altered forever – some now flow inexorably to extinction. It will only be in dreams that things will smell nice again for those families. Yet, we ethnicise the mass murder and conditionise condolence for the lost souls. Some pillory their memory because of the cyclone of their colleagues’ anger.

All through military history, those whose hens break soldiers’ pot of medicine always suffer mass loss of eggs. You heard that young soldier who went online to vow a revenge of the killings? I heard him and felt a chill at the cadence in his carefully chosen words: “We take good things to good people, bad things to bad people. Since you don price, you must collect.” That does not sound like a hollow boast from a lone wolf. If you think it is, scroll back to August last year when bandits killed scores of soldiers in Niger State. The Chief of Defence Staff, General Christopher Musa, uttered these words in August 2023: “When you have to bury your own, you feel very pained. I call on all commanders and troops all over Nigeria that we must avenge this. Those who did this and those who continue to kill our men wherever they are, we will smoke them out.” The young soldier issued his promise of revenge in poetry; the CDS’s pledge of vengeance was in plain prose. Those who wreaked the latest havoc in Delta should have listened to Musa’s unleavened words of last year. If they had taken heed and followed the word and the law, there would not have been this hackneyed talk about another deathly journey to Odi and a deadly detour to Zaki-Biam.

‘Revenge in Warfare’ is the title of an editorial comment published on May 27, 1861, by the defunct American newspaper, Springfield Daily Republican. It was in the early weeks of the American Civil War. A unit of soldiers from Massachusetts going to Washington was attacked by a pro-secession mob in Baltimore. The mob killed four soldiers. The newspaper said the Massachusetts troops “were proceeding so peaceably upon their patriotic errand, they had responded so promptly to the president’s call, the attack upon them and its fatal results thrilled the country’s heart, and men could hardly be restrained from taking the task of vengeance into their own hands.” There was a response from the troops, and the walls of Baltimore itself bore testimony to that day of murder and vengeance.

Vengeance and payback are ready companions to incidents of murder. In Yoruba, we say Akóda oró, kò dàbí àdágbèhìn – vengeance is always meaner than the original act of wickedness. You may call it retribution or reprisal or payback. If you like call it anything. All the wounded desires is to smash the thick walls of the enemy. A Second World War Soviet writer for the army wrote about why Germany must suffer fire. “When you walk through streets in the smoke of a conflagration, there is no pity in your heart. Let it burn – it is not a pity! I do not feel sorry for houses, I do not feel sorry for things. I do not feel sorry for the city. We have no pity left for Germans. Payback has come to Germany. May the robber’s nest become ashes and decay. Let them! Not a pity!” Whether in Russia or in America or in Nigeria, soldiers think that thought for whoever is the enemy that has visited them with death. It didn’t start with modern armies.

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The Warrior Ethos governs the conduct of soldiers. It has done so from Achilles to today, coast to coast. Americans have formalized the Ethos into four pledges: “I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat. I will never quit. I will never leave a fallen comrade.” Not leaving a fallen comrade is at the heart of the present ‘war’ in the Niger Delta. And, if the military are not yielding the space to our pleadings for kindness and forgiveness, it is because the officers and men know as Prussian General, Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831) observed in his ‘Vom Kriege’ that in the dangerous business of war, “the mistakes which come from kindness are the very worst.” So, if the air is presently heavy from Delta to Bayelsa in pursuit of the killers of our soldiers, the forces expect us to understand.

But, I join in pleading with the military. If they stay too long in that space, grass may start growing under their feet. More importantly, the innocent should be spared from sharing in the fate of the sinner. Indiscriminate recriminatory operations won’t prevent the sinner from committing the next sin. If they could, there would not have been Zaki-Biam soon after Odi; there would not have been Okuama after Zaki-Biam. How many officers and men have we lost in this democracy to killings such as the latest in Delta State? Even the authorities may have lost count. It is obviously rain that is yet falling. We do not know who will be next. And there will be another one unless we say enough.

How to say enough should be the present conversation. If Nigerians won’t stop killing Nigerian troops in Nigeria how about another look at the architecture of our forces, the structure of their formations and the social texture of their operational deployments? I have read low-toned social media whispers on the ethnic configuration of the Okuama casualties. More than 90 percent of those names sound northern. Why? From comments and commentaries on the tragedy, I could glean some sounds of fear and lack of trust in the fairness and justice of the forces. Martha Nussbaum, American philosopher and professor of Law and Ethics, said “a fearful people never trust the other side.”

We send policemen and soldiers to the north east, they get killed by terrorists bred locally; we send them to Zamfara and Niger states, they get killed by homegrown bandits; we deploy them to the Niger Delta, wanton militants give them the grasshopper treatment – they kill them “for their sport.” Why don’t we start sending children of death to death? If we, henceforth, send the children of fire to fire, will they still get charred? Send Yoruba soldiers and policemen to Yorubaland; send children of the creek to the creeks. If they misbehave, their misbehaviour will be to their people; if they are attacked, their attackers would know they are attacking their brothers. Everyone would know the compounds of who killed whom.

A word for the Niger Delta. It should rethink its ways. Every feud should not draw the sword. Tomorrow always eludes the land that allows every disagreement to end in war and bloodshed. Why do you think some lands are deserts and some are oases? Ask myths and legends. They have lessons to tell on how some soil sucked forbidden blood and suffered the eternal curse of aridity; nothing grows there again. Modern warfare would call it scotched-earth effect. Yet, some tragedies could be avoided if only patience is offered a seat in the heart of anger. That is why our elders warn that even when you are right, if you don’t fight right, you lose all rights. They say if you must fight, fight with sense:

E má bínúkínú

Kí e má baà j’ìjà k’ijà;

E má j’ìjà k’ijà

Kí e má baà j’èbi k’ébi.

Meaning:

Do not be unduly angry

So that you won’t fight undue fight;

Do not fight undue fight

So that you won’t be unduly guilty.

News

OPINION: Nigeria’s ‘Sheikh Of The Slaughters’

Published

4 hours ago

November 25, 2025

Editor

By Suyi Ayodele

The festive period is here, yet one wonders how the sound of fireworks will affect us, given our recent experiences in the hands of terrorists and bandits. I also wonder how the elderly women we saw in the video of the attack and abduction at Eruku town in Kwara State will react to the sound of knockouts this season. This is not the best of times for us. We have never had it this bad. Why does terrorism thrive here, and the government remains flat-footed? Emma Sky provides an answer.

The British adviser to the US military in Iraq states: “Corrupt regimes and terrorists keep each other in business. It’s a symbiotic relationship.” He made this remark while speaking about the connection between terrorists and those in government.

Chapter two of the 270-page book, ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror, written by the American journalist, author and news commentator, Michael Weiss and the columnist for UAE-based English daily, The National, Hassan Hassan, (Pg.20, 2015), opened with the above quote ascribed to Sky. The authors took that route to underscore the claims in many quarters that terrorism is not just a mere game but a transactional enterprise between those in power and the agents of death, the terrorists. The sub-title of that chapter, ‘Sheik of the Slaughters’, tells the story more. It is our today’s headline

The cliche: “to win the battle and lose the war”, often used in military circles, is defined as: “to achieve a minor success or victory, but lose or fail to achieve a larger, more important, or overall goal, especially when the larger failure is at least partly due to the smaller victory.” (Collins COBUILD Idioms dictionary, 3rd edition, 2012)

Nigeria, at the moment, presents a stark reversal of the old saying. Here, we have lost the battle and are dangerously close to losing the war. We sure need Deus ex Machina – the Greek plot device – to serve as denouement and rescue the nation. The bitter truth is that despite extensive propaganda about “technically defeating” terrorism, the terrorists are now firmly among us! Unfortunately, our response so far reflects the same predictable, panic-driven approach of previous years!

Our governments – federal, state and local – do not only negotiate with terrorists. Officials at various levels openly associate with them, attend their social functions and take photographs with individuals responsible for widespread loss of life. Not long ago, there was a report that the government paid a particular terrorist group a substantial sum of money to recover a lethal weapon the blood-sucking demons seized from our military. It was at that time that, if left in the hands of the terrorists, the weapon could be used to shoot down our president’s aircraft!

Most states in the North pay terrorists and bandits in order to maintain a semblance of peace. Farmers and other residents in the region also pay these violent groups simply to plant and harvest their crops. When individuals are kidnapped, ransom is paid, depending on the number, the circumstances and their identities, or governments ‘negotiate’ their release. In some instances, we are told that our security agencies “rescued” victims after “exchange of fire with the abductors.”

Nigeria is in ruins! Pardon the sharpness of that expression, but a milder word seems inadequate! We live in fear, perpetually at the mercy of terrorists and bandits. In the past, we slept with both eyes closed. Over time, we learnt to sleep with one eye closed. Today, we hardly sleep at all – and it is not because we suffer from insomnia, but because those more powerful than the State appear to exert control across the nation from the North to South and East to West! The government is battered, those in authority are overwhelmed!

This is not the time to play politics in Nigeria. The nation is in bad shape. Non-state actors are in control of our affairs. Those we entrust our lives to are practically absent. The leaders are in panic mode just as the governed are marooned on the island of insecurity. The iconoclast rapper, Eedris Abdulkareem, did not see anything when he sang Nigeria jaga jaga. Now is the time the protest song is most relevant!

The humanity in us dictates we should pity President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The old fox must have realised the wisdom in the caution of our wise ones that no one should sell gravel as goods. The exchange currency is usually in pebbles, our forebears posit. Today’s power wielders in Nigeria know where what is hitting them comes from. They sold sand as goods to Nigerians and Nigeria in 2014, when they politicised the mass ‘abduction’ of school children. Today, they are being paid in the same coins of pebbles (àwon tó ta ojà iyèpè ti ńgb’owó òkúta). This is sad because we are all victims!

The Yoruba indigenous religion, Ifa, in Oyeku Meji, warns that when the enemies gather to wage war against the all-female-inhabited town, no wise man should join the venture (tí wón bá sí’gun Ìlúbìrin, má bã won lo). I once asked an elder to interpret the caution in that Ifa Corpus. His response is very instructive here. The all-female-inhabited town, Ìlúbìrin the elders said, is always calm like the duck in hibernation (Ìlúbìrin máa ńdáke róró bíi pépéye tó sàba). He explained further that the gentle bird does not fight on its own because it is a bird of the women’s cult. It has an unseen army fighting its battles.

That unseen army is what the elders of my place call èsan (vengeance). The Holy writ, the Bible, says: “vengeance is mine; I will repay, says the Lord” (Deuteronomy:32:35). The gods and humans fight on behalf of the duck (àti ebora àti ènìyàn níí ja ìjà pépéye), the elder concluded. We are tempted to ask the leaders of today if they have ever broken the eggs of a duck in hibernation. If they answered in the affirmative, we would ask them to seek help. They need it!

The event of the last one week have further confirmed that Nigeria has moved from the stage of a failed nation. The country feels non-existent! How do those in power today even sleep at night? What comes to mind when they reflect on the roles they played, directly or indirectly, during the orchestrated Chibok schoolgirls’ ‘abduction’ happened on April 14, 2014? What runs through their minds?

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When the Chibok incident occurred 11 years ago, some of us believed it was a ruse. We argued that shepherding 276 girls from a school would require more than a mere illusion. We reasoned that the ‘abductors’ must have been extraordinarily well-resourced to feed the children while they were supposedly in captivity. We also noted that securing a location to keep them would not have been a simple undertaking. Furthermore, providing medical care in the so-called Sambisa Forest, where we were told they were taken, would have been an even more daunting challenge.

But we were asked to remain silent! When we insisted that the act would eventually return to haunt the perpetrators, harm the entire nation and injure the innocent – who had no part in the dangerous politicking that led to Chibok, we were told to blame the “clueless” President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan. Ironically today, those who once silenced us for suggesting that Chibok was a scam, are now the same set of people claiming that the recent series of schoolchildren kidnapping are political weapons aimed at undermining President Tinubu.

The calamity sweeping across the country today is like the proverbial rain – it spares no one. As the elders say, “A thing that is not sufficient is not allowed to go to waste” (ohun tí ò tó, kìí s’òfò). The North of Nigeria is widely regarded as an educationally disadvantaged. Yet, in that same region, 46 unity schools, all owned by the Federal Government, are now completely shut because terrorists are attacking schools across the 19 northern states! Just when it seemed that the problem was confined to the North, a school in Ekiti State – the Federal Technical College (FTC), Usi Ekiti – was also closed! The question now is: where is safe in Nigeria?

The United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, Safe School Data, (September 2023), reports stated that 723 schools were closed in the North because of insecurity. A few of the schools, the report added, were shut down because non-state actors (terrorists) and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) occupied the schools’ premises. It listed states such as Adamawa, Benue, Borno, Katsina, Sokoto Yobe and Zamfara as mostly affected.

Yet we expect students in these schools to compete favourably with their counterparts down South. The campaign to bridge the educational gap between the North and the South has been ongoing for generations, championed by Nigerians of goodwill. Sadly, those for whom others undertake great sacrifices are busy enjoying comfort and abundance!

My concern is that ultimately, the misfortune of the North will be spread in equal measure across the Federation. The daily migration of northern young men and woman, from childhood to adulthood, to the South demonstrates that when the North suffers, it invariably drags the South along.

This is why nobody should adopt the attitude of “it is their problem over there.” The North is eating the bad insect today; the attendant whooping cough of that bad habit will give all of us sleepless nights. This is why we must all set politics aside and join hands in the fight against this menace. If a school could be shut down in Ekiti State because of threat of terrorism, no school in the South-West is truly safe. As the saying goes, when a fellow hunter shouts, “it is coming”, our elders advise that we set our nets in readiness for a catch (ó hún bo, ó hún bò, àwòn làá de dèé).

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The last week has been that of great calamity for Nigerians. It was a week the nation lost a two-star General, Brigadier-General Musa Uba and three other officers, killed by terrorists who ‘captured’ them after they survived an earlier ambush. Ask those who know the art of war, and you will be told that for an officer of the rank of a Brigadier-General to die on the battlefield, not a few other officers and other ranks would have gone! But it happened here, and we shoved it aside, facing other calamities.

Within the same week, almost 400 students were ‘kidnapped’ in Niger and Yobe States by terrorists. The same ‘sheik of the slaughters’ also killed no fewer than 68 Nigerians across some states of the North. In Eruku, 38 worshippers in a church were kidnapped and three others killed! While the government of Kwara State announced on Sunday that the 38 victims had been ‘rescued’, a blog in the locality claimed that the government paid close to N200 million before the victims were released. Whom do we believe, whom do we trust?

On the farm or on the way to the stream and in the comfort of our bedrooms, we all live in the fear of terrorists. If we are not the victims today, we assist our kidnapped neighbours and relations in raising the ransom for their release. Those of them who were unfortunate and died in captivity, we organised their funerals. In most extreme cases, we don’t get their corpses to be buried! Whichever way one views it, we are all victims, helpless victims for that matter! The only question on our lips is: how did we get here?

Just as we are grappling with the closure of those 47 unity schools, the governments of Yobe, Adamawa and Taraba States, ordered that all schools – private or public – operating boarding facilities in the states must close them due to the threat of terrorist attacks! What, then, is the fate of the students of these closed boarding schools? Will the West African sub-regional examination body wait for them when it is time to sit for the regional sub-examination? How can we treat our future this shabbily and still expect Nigeria to develop?

From all indications, and I hope President Tinubu gets this: Nigeria has lost the battle. And by the way things are going, we are on the verge of losing the war. When terrorism and banditry started as a battle pre-2014, and the government of President Jonathan wanted to confront it headlong, many of the actors of today’s power frustrated the efforts for political reasons. Notable leaders from the North said fighting Boko Haram was like fighting the North. We accepted their narratives and looked on while the felons overran Nigeria!

Those who travelled as far as the United States to ask for ‘help’ all in the bid to get rid of Jonathan, are now crying because the same US has noticed that Nigeria is not just a “disgraced” country, but a nation in dire need of help! Many of us still don’t understand why the issue of Nigeria’s sovereignty should be paramount now when 11 years ago, the present handlers of our affairs threw that same principle to the wild dogs! The US assisted them into power. Today, the same American Government has indicated that it would, on its own volition, intervene and put an end to the killings in Nigeria.

What is the reaction of the government? A powerful delegation was sent to the US to go and explain that nothing like genocide is happening here! We die in our hundreds, they say it is not genocide! Do we have to wait till there will be nobody to bury the dead before the realisation will dawn on us? Growing up, we were told that the man with a thorn in his foot limps to meet the man holding the blade. The reverse is the case today in Nigeria.

When our swollen pus-infected foot is visible to the world, our leaders say all is well. However, the truth starring us all in the face is that whether America comes or not, the present government here has lost the battle. If it remains lethargic, it will lose the war in a matter of time. When that happens, our leaders will not merely limp, looking for the man with the razor, they will take a dash in their wobbling tracks seeking help. May it not be too late!

News

10 Countries With The Strongest Global Reputation In 2025

Published

4 hours ago

November 25, 2025

Editor

In today’s world, countries’ reputation is more than prestige: they shape investment, trade, tourism, and diplomatic influence.

CEOWORLD Magazine’s Global Nations Reputation Index 2026 evaluates 197 economies using 50 key attributes across governance, ethics, innovation, sustainability, and social cohesion. The result is a comprehensive measure of global trust and respect.

Leading the ranking is Singapore, recognized for its stability, innovation, and effective governance, surpassing long-established reputations of Switzerland, Ireland, and Germany.

Here’s a look at the top 10 countries with the strongest global reputation:

1. Singapore (97.83) – Asia

Renowned for policy consistency, transparent governance, and advanced infrastructure. Singapore is a hub of innovation, multicultural inclusion, and neutral diplomacy.

2. Switzerland (97.81) – Europe

Admired for neutrality, financial integrity, high quality of life, and robust institutions. Switzerland is a global standard for stability and innovation.

3. Ireland (97.22) – Europe

Known for economic openness, skilled workforce, and cultural diplomacy. Ireland combines modern business competitiveness with strong social cohesion.

4. Netherlands (96.77) – Europe

Celebrated for progressive policies, sustainability, and global trade leadership. The Netherlands excels in human capital development and innovation.

5. Germany (95.49) – Europe

A powerhouse of industrial and technological innovation, governance, and global influence. Germany maintains a strong reputation for efficiency and reliability.

6. Norway (93.55) – Europe

Respected for social welfare, environmental stewardship, and transparent governance. Norway blends prosperity with high citizen trust and global responsibility.

7. Denmark (93.46) – Europe

Known for quality of life, ethical governance, and sustainability. Denmark consistently ranks high in innovation, education, and societal cohesion.

8. Luxembourg (93.34) – Europe

Small but influential, Luxembourg is admired for economic stability, governance, and financial integrity. It maintains a strong reputation as a safe and prosperous nation.

9. Sweden (92.93) – Europe

Celebrated for social equality, innovation, and environmental leadership. Sweden balances economic competitiveness with progressive policies and human capital development.

10. Liechtenstein (92.79) – Europe

Highly respected for governance, economic stability, and quality of life. Liechtenstein combines a strong financial sector with a reputation for discretion and reliability.

News

Edo: Stakeholders Rally To Address Children Trafficking Through Education

Published

4 hours ago

November 25, 2025

Editor

Stakeholders in migration and education gathered in Benin on Tuesday to discuss Mainstreamed TIP Content in the revised National Curriculum, and how best to utilise the new curriculum addressing irregular migration and children trafficking in particular.

The stakeholders, comprising the International Centre for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD); the National Agency for the Prohibition of Trafficking in Persons (NAPTIP), and Edo State Government held a two-day two-day training of subjects teachers on Mainstreamed TIP Content in the revised National Curriculum code named School Anti-Trafficking Education and Advocacy Project (STEAP).

In her speech, ICMPD Head of Office, Nigeria, Isabelle Wolfsgruber, revealed that over 75% of trafficking victims in West Africa are children, and that Nigeria shares a high percentage, stressing the urgent need for preventive efforts, particularly “within our schools.”

The ICMPD Head of Office, Nigeria, said the rising statistic underscores the urgent need to “leverage education as a powerful tool to prevent trafficking.”

Her speech, which was read by Favour Simeon, ICMPD, Wolfsgruber expressed optimism that at the end of the training, the teachers would have been equipped, and by extension, the “larger school community with knowledge about the risks of trafficking, how to recognize warning signs, and strategies to stay safe.”

The Head, Nigeria Office, ICMPD, who disclosed that 150 teachers drawn from 50 schools across the state were captured for the training, added: “That is why we have organized this two -day training workshop for subject teachers from selected schools in Edo State. Through this training, teachers will gain practical skills to apply the curriculum
effectively while fostering safe and supportive classrooms that protect children from harm.

“The training aims to equip teachers with a thorough understanding of human trafficking, practical skills to deliver the national approved curriculum effectively, and the capacity to act as child protection advocates, fostering safe, supportive, and collaborative school environments.”

On her part, Director-General NAPTIP, Binta Bello, who said trafficking in Persons remains “one of the gravest human rights violations confronting Nigeria today,” emphasised the need for collective effort to “safeguard the future of our children and strengthen the national response to human trafficking through education.”

The DG, who was represented by Hassan Tahri, added: “The statistics are deeply troubling-children account for more than 55 percent of identified victims.”

In his speech, Edo State Commissioner for Education, Dr. Paddy Iyamu, while lamenting that “Edo State has, in the past, been significantly affected by the devastating consequences of human trafficking,” however, noted that “tremendous progress has been made in recent years, we must continue to consolidate our gains by strengthening education-driven prevention mechanisms.”

Iyamu, while stating that “education remains the most powerful tool for shaping values, informing decision-making, and protecting the next generation from exploitation,”
promised that his ministry will continue to “reinforce our State’s preventive strategies and expand the impact of our anti-trafficking interventions in schools.”

“This training is not just another workshop—it is a strategic investment in the human infrastructure that supports our fight against Trafficking in Persons (TIP),” he said.